S%  JL  p.  ptl  pbrarg 


£forti[  €arolina  jitate  fliollege 


This  book  must  not  be 
taken  from  the  Library 
building.  $773 


70tf'4£ 

£0ct  50 

26Jun'51 
|3NoV57 


Luther  Burbank  at  Sixty-four 

This     direct     color     snapshot     of     Mr.     Burbank     was 

made    on    his    sixty-fourth    birthday,    March    7th,    1013.       In 

California,  by  an  act  of  legislature,  Mr.  Burbank's  birthday  is  a  state 

holiday,  called  "Burbank  Day"— taking  the  place  of  Arbor  Day 

in   other  states.      On   Mr.   Burbank's   birthday   the  school 

children    of    the    State    plant    trees    and    celebrate 

the     occasion     with     appropriate     exercises. 


Luther  Burbank 


HIS  METHODS  AND  DISCOVERIES  AND 
THEIR  PRACTICAL  APPLICATION 


PREPARED  FROM 

HIS  ORIGINAL  FIELD  NOTES 

COVERING  MORE  THAN  100,000  EXPERIMENTS 

MADE  DURING  FORTY  YEARS  DEVOTED 

TO  PLANT  IMPROVEMENT 

WITH  THE  ASSISTANCE  OF 

The  Luther  Burbank  Society 

AND  ITS 
ENTIRE  MEMBERSHIP 

UNDER  THE  EDITORIAL  DIRECTION  OF 

John  Whitson  and  Robert  John 

AND 

Henry  Smith  Williams,  M.  D.,  LL.  D. 


Volume  I 


ILLUSTRATED  WITH 

105  DIRECT  COLOR  PHOTOGRAPH  PRINTS  PRODUCED  BY  A 

NEW  PROCESS  DEVISED  AND  PERFECTED  FOR 

USE  IN  THESE  VOLUMES 


NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 

LUTHER  BURBANK  PRESS 

MCMXIV 


COPYRIGHT   1914 

BY 

THE    LUTHER    BUP.CANK    SOCIETY 

ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 


Volume  I  —  By  Chapters 

Foreword Page  3 

I  How  the  Cactus  Got  Its  Spines  — 
And  How  It  Lost  Them 

— A  Sidelight  on  _ 

The  Importance  of  Environment , » 

II  Twenty-three  Potato  Seeds  — 
And  What  They  Taught 

— A  Glimpse  at  the  „  ,. 

Influence  of  Heredity OO 


III       No  Two  Living  Things 
Exactly  Alike 


— Infinite  Ingenuity  the  Price  f-n 

of  Variation 0  < 


IV        The  Rivalry  of  Plants 
To  Please  Us 


— On  the  Forward  March  of  -.  .  -  — 

Adaptation J-U  / 


V         Let  Us  Now  Produce  a 
New  Pink  Daisy 


— A  Practical  Lesson  in  1  ,1 1 

Harnessing  Heredity J- 41 

VI  Short-Cuts  Into  the 
Centuries  to  Come 

— Better  Plants  Secured  by  111 

Hurrying  Evolution X  i  I 

VII  How  Far  Can  Plant 
Improvement  Go  ? 

— The  Crossroads  Where  Fact  Oil 

and  Theory  Seem  to  Part £1.1. 

VIII  Some  Plants  Which  Are  Begging 
for  Immediate  Improvement 

— A  Rough  Survey  of  O  /f  C 

the  Possibilities Z4t D 

IX  Piecing  the  Fragments  of  a 
Motion  Picture  Film 

— We  Stop  to  Take  OIZ, 

A  Backward  Glance £  lO 

List  of  Direct  Color  Photograph  Prints 305 


Foreword 

Just  as  a  stranger,  going  into  a  home  for  the 
first  time,  will  see,  vividly,  either  beauties  or 
incongruities  which  constant  association  has 
dimmed  in  the  eyes  of  the  steady  occupants,  just 
so,  a  fresh  mind  may  be  better  able  to  visualize 
the  more  common  processes,  all  too  familiar  to 
me,  which  I  employ  in  my  daily  work. 

There  are,  in  fact,  many  details  in  my  routine 
which  are  no  less  important  because  they  are 
common  to  me  and  which  may  need  some  little 
explanation  when  described  to  others  in  different 
walks  of  life. 

I  have,  therefore,  asked  my  associates,  whose 
new  viewpoint  should  enable  them  to  observe 
these  details  in  clear  perspective,  to  present  in 
this — the  first  volume,  a  survey  of  the  working 
methods  employed;  so  that  the  reader  may  in 
the  first  few  chapters  be  brought  to  the  point 
where  he  and  I  may  go  out  into  the  fields 
together,  and  work  among  our  plants  with  perfect 
understanding. 


LUTHER  BURBANK. 


Santa  Rosa,  California 
January  7,  1914. 


Armored  Against  Its  Enemies 

The  desert  cactus  shown  in  the  accompanying  direct  color 
photograph    print   portrays    a    typical    arrangement    of    armor, 
although  many  forms  of  cactus  are  more  heavily  spined  even   than 
this.    In  addition  to  the  laige  bristling  spines  which  fan  out  in 
every  direction,  there  are  hidden   behind  each  rosette  a 
bundle  of  undeveloped  spines,  numbering  often  as 
high  as  ten  thousand  to  each  eye.    When  the 
outward  spines  are  cut  off,  these  push 
their  way  forward  with  surpris- 
ing rapidity  to  protect  the 
gap  in  the  armor. 


How  the  Cactus  Got  Its  Spines 
—And  How  It  Lost  Them 

A  Sidelight  on 
The  Importance  of  Environment 


IT  IS  the  acre-and-a-quarter  patch  of  spineless 
cactus  on  Luther  Burbank's  experiment  farm 
which  first  strikes  the  visitor's  eye.  In  the 
same  yard  there  are  2500  other  experiments  under 
way — new  flowers,  fruits,  vegetables,  trees  and 
plants  of  all  descriptions  such  as  man  has  never 
before  seen,  but  the  velvet  slabbed  cactus — freed 
from  its  thorns — seems  more  than  a  plant  trans- 
formation, it  seems  a  miracle.  Since  the  spineless 
cactus  represents  the  typical  Burbank  boldness 
of  conception,  and  reflects  the  typical  Burbank 
skillful  execution,  we  may  as  well  begin  with  it. 

It  occurred  to  Luther  Burbank  one  day  that 
every  plant  growing  on  the  desert  was  either 
bitter,  or  poisonous,  or  spiny.  It  was  this  simple 
observation  which  gave  him  the  idea  of  this  new 

[Volume  I — Chapter  I] 


UB*^ 


».c-sittt 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

plant — a  plant  which  already  has  shown  its 
ability  to  outdo  alfalfa  five  to  one,  and  which 
promises  to  support  our  cattle  on  what  have  been 
the  waste  places  of  the  world;  so  that  our 
ranges  may  be  turned  into  gardens  to  produce  the 
vegetable  sustenance  for  a  multiplying  population. 

Let  us  look  at  the  life  story  of  the  cactus  as 
it  unfolded  itself  to  Luther  Burbank  when  he 
realized  the  importance  of  the  simple  fact  that 
desert  plants  are  usually  bitter,  poisonous,  or 
spiny. 

"Here  are  plants,"  thought  he,  "which  have  the 
hardiness  to  live,  and  to  thrive,  and  to  perpetuate 
themselves,  under  conditions  in  which  other 
plants  would  die  in  a  day  or  a  month. 

"Here  are  plants  which,  although  there  may 
be  not  a  drop  of  rain  for  a  year,  two  years,  or  even 
ten,  still  contrive  to  get  enough  moisture  out  of 
the  deep  soil  and  out  of  the  air,  to  build  up  a 
structure  which,  by  weight,  is  ninety-two  per  cent, 
water — plants  which  contrive  to  absorb  from  the 
scorching  desert,  and  to  protect  from  the  withering 
sun,  enough  moisture  to  make  them  nearly  as 
juicy  as  watermelons. 

"Here  are  plants  which  are  veritable  wells  of 
water,  growing  in  a  land  where  there  are  no 
springs,  or  brooks — nor  even  clouds  to  encourage 
the  hope  of  a  cooling  rain;  here  are  plants  which 

[8] 


Every  Inch  Protected 

Not    only    in    the    form    of    cactus    shown    here,    but    in 

practically  every  form,  the  spines  are  so  arranged  as  to  protect 

every  inch  of  the  surface.    It  will  be  seen  that  it  would  scarcely  be 

possible  to  touch  a  finger  to  the  skin  of  the  cactus  plant  above, 

so  completely  does   the  armor  protect   it.     This  form   of 

cactus  also  gives  an  interesting  illustration  of  the 

fact  that  away  back  in  its  history,  the  plant, 

instead  of  having  flat  slabs,  had  round 

stalks.    In  this  picture  the  three 

joints   of   the   round   stalk 

can  be  clearly  seen. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

are  rich  in  nutriment  for  man  and  for  beast,  here 
in  the  desert  where  the  demand  for  food  is  the 
most  acute — and  the  supply  of  it  the  most  scanty. 

"And  here  they  are,  ruined  for  every  useful 
purpose,  by  the  bitterness  which  makes  them 
inedible,  or  the  poison  which  sickens  or  kills,  or 
the  spiny  armor  which  places  their  store  of  nutri- 
ment and  moisture  beyond  reach. 

"There  must  be  some  reason  for  that  bitterness, 
that  poison,  those  spines. 

"What  other  reason  could  there  be  than  that 
these  are  Nature's  provisions  for  self  defense? 

"Here  are  the  sagebrush,  with  a  bitterness  as 
irritant,  almost,  as  the  sting  of  a  bee,  the  euphorbia 
as  poisonous  as  a  snake,  the  cactus  as  well 
armored  as  a  porcupine — and  for  the  same  reason 
that  bees  have  stings,  that  snakes  have  fangs, 
that  porcupines  have  arrow-like  spines — for  self 
protection  from  some  stronger  enemy  which  seeks 

to  destroy." 

***** 

Self  preservation  comes  before  self  sacrifice, 
apparently,  in  plant  life  just  as  it  does  in  human 
life. 

The  plum  trees  in  our  orchards  outdo  each 
other  in  bearing  fruit  to  please  us;  the  geraniums 
in  our  dooryards  compete  to  see  which  may  give 
us  the  greatest  delight. 

[10] 


ON  ENVIRONMENT 

But  may  it  not  be  because,  for  generations,  we 
have  fostered  them,  and  nurtured  them,  and  cared 
for  them? 

May  it  not  be  because  we  have  made  it  easy  for 
them  to  live  and  to  thrive? 

May  it  not  be  because  we  have  relieved  them 
of  the  responsibility  of  defense  and  reproduction, 
that  they  have  rewarded  our  kindly  care  by 
fruiting  and  blooming,  not  for  their  own  selfish 
ends,  but  for  us? 

No  man  was  ever  kind  to  a  cactus;  no  man  ever 
cultivated  the  sagebrush;  no  man  ever  cherished 
the  poisonous  euphorbia. 

Is  it,  then,  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  primal 
instinct  of  self  preservation  has  prevailed — that 
what  might  have  been  a  food  plant  equal  to  the 
plum  transformed  itself  into  a  wild  porcupine 
among  plants? 

That  what  might  have  been  as  useful  to  the 
horse  as  hay  changed  its  nature  and  became  bitter, 
woody,  inedible? 

That  what  might  have  been  a  welcome  friend 
to  the  weary  desert  traveler  grew  up,  instead,  into 
a  poisonous  enemy? 

***** 

"If  the  bitterness,  the  poison  and  the  spines 
are  means  of  self  defense,"  thought  Mr.  Burbank, 
"then    they    must    be    means    which    have    been 

[11] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

acquired.  The  plants  were  here  before  there  were 
animals  to  feed  on  or  destroy  them,  so  there  must 
have  been  a  time  in  their  history  when  they  had 
no  need  for  such  defense. 

"It  must  be  true,  then,  that  away  back  in  their 
ancestry  there  were  desert  sagebrushes  which 
were  not  bitter,  desert  euphorbias  which  were  not 
poisonous,  and  desert  cactus  plants  which  had 
not  even  the  suspicion  of  a  spine.  It  could  only 
be  the  long  continued  danger  of  destruction 
which  could  have  produced  so  radical  a  means  of 
defense. 

"We  have,  then,  but  to  take  these  plants  back 
to  a  period  in  their  history  before  defense  had 
become  a  problem — in  order  to  produce  an  edible 
sagebrush,  a  non-poisonous  euphorbia,  a  spineless 
cactus." 

How,  in  a  dozen  years,  Mr.  Burbank  carried  the 
cactus  back  ages  in  its  ancestry,  how  he  proved 
beyond  question  by  planting  a  thousand  cactus 
seeds  that  the  spiny  cactus  descended  from  a 
smooth  slabbed  line  of  forefathers  —  how  he 
brought  forth  a  new  race  without  the  suspicion 
of  a  spine,  and  with  a  velvet  skin,  and  how  he  so 
re-established  these  old  characteristics  that  the 
result  was  fixed  and  permanent  —  all  of  these 
things  will  be  explained  in  due  course  where  the 
discoveries   involved   and   the   working   methods 

[12] 


A  Relic  of  Past  Ages 


The    color    photograph    print    shown    above    is    a    six    time 

enlargement  of  a  cactus  seedling  just  after  it  has  poked  its  head 

above  ground.   It  will  be  noticed  that  the  root  has  already  shown  its 

tendency  to  go  deep  in  the  ground  and  that  this,  together  with   the 

spine-covered    upright   stalk    or   slab,   reflects    the    characteristics   of 

immediate  ancestry.     The  more  interesting  fact,  however,  and  the  fact 

which    proved    to    Mr.    Burbank's    mind   his    theory    of    the    original 

spinelessness   of   cactus,    is    to    be   found   in   the   two   smooth    leaves 

extending   from    the   base   of   the   small    thorny    slab.     These    leaves, 

though  rudimentary,  and  dropping  off  a  few  days  after  the  cactus  is 

above  the  ground,  are  reminders  of  a  former  age  when  all  cactus 

plants  had  stalks   or   leaves   that   were  as   smooth   as   these. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

employed  may  be  made  applicable,  as  well,  to  the 
improvement  of  other  plants. 

It  suffices,  here,  to  say  that,  beginning  with  his 
simple  observation  and  reading  the  history  of  the 
cactus  from  its  present-day  appearance,  he  was 
able  to  see  outlined  before  him  the  method  by 
which  a  plant  yielding  rich  food  and  forage  has 
been  produced,  which,  more  than  any  other  plant, 
promises  to  solve  the  present-day  problem  of 
higher  living  costs. 

***** 

"But,  Mr.  Burbank,"  asked  a  visitor  at  the  Santa 
Rosa  Experiment  Farm,  "do  you  mean  that  the 
cactus  foresaw  the  coming  of  an  enemy  which  was 
to  destroy  it?  Is  it  believable  that  a  plant,  like 
a  nation  expecting  war,  could  armor  itself  in 
advance  of  the  necessity?  And  if  the  cactus  did 
not  know  that  an  enemy  was  later  to  destroy  it, 
would  it  not  have  been  destroyed  by  the  enemy 
before  it  had  the  opportunity  of  preparing  a  means 
of  defense?" 

Let  us  look  into  the  history  of  the  plant  as  it 
revealed  itself  to  Mr.  Burbank  and  see  the  answer 

to  these  questions. 

***** 

The  likelihood  is  that  parts  of  Nevada,  Arizona, 
Utah  and  Northern  Mexico  were  once  a  great 
inland  sea — that  the  deserts  now  there  were  the 

[14] 


ON  ENVIRONMENT 

bed  of  that  sea  before  it  began  its  long  process  of 
leakage  or  evaporation. 

In  these  regions,  so  far  as  is  known,  the  North 
American  cactus  seems  to  have  originated. 

Back  in  the  ages  before  the  evaporation  of  the 
inland  sea  was  complete,  the  heat  and  the  moisture 
and  the  chemical  constituents  of  the  sandy  soil 
combined  to  give  many  plants  an  opportunity  to 
thrive.  Among  these  was  the  cactus,  which  was 
an  entirely  different  plant  in  appearance  from 
the  cactus  of  today,  no  doubt,  with  well  defined 
stalks  and  a  multitude  of  leaves,  each  as  broad  as 
a  man's  head. 

As  the  heat,  which  had  lifted  away  the  inland 
sea,  began  to  parch  its  bottom,  the  cactus,  with  the 
same  tendency  that  is  shown  by  every  other  plant 
and  every  other  living  thing,  began  to  adapt  itself 
to  the  changing  conditions. 

It  gradually  dropped  its  leaves  in  order  to 
prevent  too  rapid  transpiration  of  the  precious 
life-supporting  moisture.  It  sent  its  roots  deeper 
and  deeper  into  the  damp  sub-stratum  which  the 
sun  had  not  yet  reached.  It  thickened  its  stalks 
into  broad  slabs.  It  lowered  its  main  source  of 
life  and  sustenance  far  beneath  the  surface  of  the 
ground  and  found  it  possible,  thus,  to  persist  and 
to  prosper. 

Perhaps   there   were,   in    the   making   of    the 

[15] 


Co    s 


S 


C5 


"-   a   5 

a  c  a  v 
<c  «  c  *;  ts 

"o  *,.*.£  ° 

""Sap"? 

^  2  ^  c 


:  "S  B  ^  J.  *S  » Ss 


?5^  e 
•w     ts'S  « 

N     5)      « 

•~  **•«>  «  o 

fc.2~     : 

5  ©  S5  o. 


S2 


a  c  *j  ■*-  a  -^ 
«  ""  5  h  >  °  9 
2  «  3  a  e  „  « 

a  •<-  *~  »j  cf  5  v> 
""    -       c  L  © 2 

.2      «-~ 

[■gas's 


a"B*S  5,3. 
4>  »)  u>  —  |~  2 


•~  «  »,  a 


5  a  g-,5  ^  §  2 


ON  ENVIRONMENT 

desert,  other  plants  not  so  adaptable  as  the  cactus, 
plants  which  perished  and  of  which  man  has  no 
knowledge  or  record. 

And  so,  we  may  assume,  the  cactus  and  those 
other  plants  which  adapted  themselves  to  the  new 
conditions  crowded  out  those  which  were  unable 
to  fit  themselves  to  survive,  and  covered  the  drying 
plains  with  their  verdure. 

But  there  came  animals  to  the  bed  of  this 
one-time  sea,  attracted,  perhaps,  by  the  cactus  and 
its  contemporaries,  which  offered  them  food  of 
satisfying  flavor  and  easy  access. 

Of  the  plants  which  had  survived  the  evapora- 
tion of  the  sea  and  the  heat  of  the  broiling  sun, 
there  were  many,  quite  likely,  which  failed  to 
survive  the  new  danger — the  onslaught  of  the 
animals. 

Species  by  species  the  vegetation  of  the  desert 
was  thinned  out  by  the  elements  and  by  the 
animals;  and  the  animals,  with  plant  life  to 
feed  on,  multiplied  themselves  in  ever  increasing 
hordes,  till  perhaps  the  cactus  was  but  one  of  a 
dozen  plants  to  survive. 

Then  came  the  fight  of  the  cactus  to  outdo  the 
beasts  which  sought  to  devour  it — the  fight  as  a 
family,  and  the  fight  within  the  family  to  see  which 
of  its  individuals  should  be  found  fit  to  persist. 

Of  a  million  cactus  plants  eaten  to  the  ground 

[17] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

by  ravenously  hungry  antelopes,  we  will  say — 
antelopes  which  had  increased  in  numbers  year 
by  year  while  their  food  supply  year  by  year  was 
relentlessly  dwindling  —  of  these  million  plants 
gnawed  down  to  the  roots,  perhaps  but  a  thousand 
or  two  had  the  stamina  to  throw  out  new  leaves — 
and  to  try  over  again. 

But  just  as  in  its  previous  experience,  the 
cactus  had  changed  the  character  of  its  stalk,  so 
now  it  undertook  another  change — the  acquisition 
of  an  armor. 

This  armor  at  first  consisted  of  nothing  but  a 
soft  protuberance,  a  modified  fruit  bud  or  leaf, 
perhaps,  ineffectual  in  warding  off  the  onslaughts 
of  the  hungry  animals. 

So,  of  the  thousand  or  two  left  out  of  the 
million,  there  may  have  been  but  a  hundred  which 
were  able  to  ward  off  destruction. 

The  hundred,  stronger  than  the  rest,  though 
eaten  to  the  ground,  were  able  still  to  send  up  new 
leaves,  and  with  each  new  crop  the  hairs  became 
stiffer  and  longer,  the  protuberances  harder  and 
more  pointed,  until  finally,  if  there  were  even  only 
one  surviving  representative  of  the  race,  there  was 
developed  a  cactus  which  was  effectually  armored 
against  its  every  animal  enemy. 

One  such  surviving  cactus,  as  transformed 
throughout  ages  and  ages  of  time,  meeting  new 

[18] 


As  Smooth  as  Velvet 

A  direct  color  photograph  print  of  four  cactus  leaves  after  Mr. 

Burbank    had    taken    the    plant    backward    in    its    evolution    to 

spinelessness.     Not  only  have  the  outward  spines  vanished,  but  all  of 

the    thousands   of  rudimentary  spines,   bundled   up   inside,   as    well. 

Contrasted  with  its  parent  varieties,  it  is  not  only  possible  to  handle 

spineless  cactus  with  impunity,  but  it  is  so  soft  and  velvety  that 

it  can  be  safely  rubbed  over  the  face.     Either  in  the  form  of 

slabs,    or   cut    into    strips,    or   ground    into    meal,    cattle 

instinctively  prefer   cactus   to   any  other  food.     The 

elephants    from    a    passing    circus    showed    an 

immediate    liking    for    the    new    food    and 

vigorously     trumpeted    for    more. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

conditions  with  changes  so  slight  as  to  be  almost 
imperceptible,  but  gradually  accommodating  itself 
to  the  conditions  under  which  it  lived  and  grew — 
one  such  survivor  out  of  all  the  billions  of 
cactus  plants  that  have  ever  grown,  would  have 
been  sufficient  to  have  covered  the  deserts  of  the 
world  with  its  progeny — to  have  produced  all  of 
the  thorny  cactus  which  we  have  in  the  world 

today. 

***** 

"You  see,"  said  Mr.  Burbank,  "the  cactus  did 
not  prepare  in  advance  to  meet  an  enemy — it 
simply  adapted  itself  to  changing  conditions  as 
those  conditions  arose.  First,  surviving  the  desert 
drought  and  the  broiling  sun,  it  threw  its  roots 
deep  so  that  its  main  source  of  life  was  below 
ground.  Then,  attacked  by  an  enemy  which  ate 
off  the  leaves  above  the  surface,  it  still  had  life 
and  resistance  to  try  again.  Ineffectually,  at  first,  it 
began  to  build  its  armor,  but  each  discouragement 
proved  but  the  incentive  to  another  attempt.  It 
is  a  vivid  picture:  the  whole  cactus  family  in 
a  death  struggle  for  supremacy  over  an  enemy 
which  threatens  its  very  life  —  millions  and 
millions  of  the  family  perishing  in  the  struggle, 
and  perhaps  but  one  victorious  survivor  left  to 
start  a  new  and  armored  race. 

"It  is  wonderful,  too;  but,  whenever  we  plant  a 

[20] 


ON  ENVIRONMENT 

cactus  slab  today  we  see  evidences  of  adaptability 
more  wonderful  than  this. 

"The  slab  of  cactus  is  a  brilliant  green  as  we 
put  it  in  the  ground.  It  is  flat,  of  an  oval  shape, 
an  inch  or  less  in  thickness.  Its  internal  structure 
is  of  soft,  mushy  fiber,  mostly  water. 

"As  that  slab  sends  down  roots,  it  begins  to 
prepare  itself  to  bear  the  burden  of  the  other  slabs 
which  are  to  grow  above  it. 

"The  thin,  flat  shape  thickens  out  until  it  is 
almost  spherical;  thus  presenting  a  curved  surface 
in  four  directions  instead  of  in  two,  it  braces  itself 
against  the  winds  which  will  play  with  the  new 
slabs  far  above  it. 

"Its  mushy  wood  fibers  grow  tough  and 
resistant;  it  loses  much  of  its  watery  character. 

"It  changes  in  color,  from  green  to  brown;  it 
loses  its  velvety  skin  and  develops  a  bark  like 
that  of  a  tree. 

"Within  a  year  after  planting,  this  cactus 
slab  will  have  changed  in  appearance  and  in 
characteristics  to  fit  itself  to  the  new  conditions 
which  surround  it. 

"It  will  have  changed  its  structure  to  bear 
weight  and  stand  strains.  It  will  have  modified  its 
internal  mechanism  to  transmit  moisture  instead 
of  to  store  it.  It  will  have  remodeled  its  outer 
skin  to  protect  itself  from  the  ground  animals  from 

[21] 


?3i 

.C! 


;»;ijOktiiiC(iO    ITS'!! 


-IS3 

IS** 

8S§3 

2  O.A   <n 


S3  3 


<?>  ■*-   •«*•=: 


<o  X  a  ~  « 
a'-'.c  a  o 


e  .5  .© ' 
wo1- 


Bi 

e 


•c  •-  a  2 

ft  ^   ft 


'•£■-  2 


2s* 


J3-S3*! 


■5  ?> 


•Q.2 


^  •-  *»  s  ®  ■ 

a  «  o  a  v 


■3.S 


«<&■§!  I  §** 

'       *-=  ">  ^      £ 

5-2  §  o-a<  2f=~ 

•S  «  «  «: "«  <  S 


§5 


;  ,«:£  a 

!  72  -         «» 


<  ■ 


a  «> 


B  £ 


2  a  u 

~>  <u  »• 

oft- 


ON  ENVIRONMENT 

which,  when  it  wavS  a  slab  high  up  on  another 

cactus  plant,  it  knew  and  feared  no  danger!" 

***** 

Is  it  more  wonderful  that,  unseen  by  us,  a 
plant  should  have  adapted  itself  to  the  desert 
and,  through  the  ages,  have  armored  itself  against 
an  enemy,  than  that,  before  our  eyes,  in  a  single 
year,  it  should  meet  changed  conditions  in  an 
equally  effective  way? 

Is  it  more  wonderful  that  it  should  grow  spines 
than  that  it  should  grow  slabs  which  in  turn  have 
the  power  to  grow  other  slabs? 

Is  not  the  really  wonderful  thing  the  fact  that 

it  grows  at  all? 

***** 

The  cactus  is  one  of  the  most  plastic  of  plants — 
educated  up  to  this,  perhaps,  by  the  hardships 
and  battles  through  which  its  ancestry  has  fought 
its  way. 

A  slip  cut  from  a  rose  bush,  for  example, 
must  be  planted  in  carefully  prepared  ground  of 
a  suitable  kind,  at  a  certain  time  of  the  year,  with 
regard  to  moisture  and  temperature — it  must  be 
watched  and  cared  for  until  it  takes  root  and 
begins  for  itself.  Under  continued  cultivation,  the 
rose  bush  has  lost  some  of  its  ability  to  make  its 
own  way. 

But  the  cactus,  having  come  up  from  a  line 

[23] 


/•s 


4s* 


LUTHER  BURBANK 


tV^  of  warriors  with  every  hand  against  it,  needs  no 

^»  such  care.    Every  one  of  the  fifty  or  more  wart-like 

&*•  eyes  on  its  every  slab  is  competent  to  throw  out 

a  root,   a  fruit,  or  another  slab — whichever  the 

occasion  seems  to  warrant. 

Lay  a  cactus  slab  on  hard  ground,  unscratched 
by  a  hoe,  and  the  eyes  of  its  under  side  will  throw 
long  yellow  roots  downward,  while  the  eyes  on 
the  upper  side  await  their  opportunity,  once  the 
slab  is  rooted,  to  throw  their  other  slabs  and  their 
blossoms  upward. 

As  the  tiny  buds  grow  from  the  eyes,  it  is 
impossible  by  sight  or  microscopic  examination  to 
determine  which  will  be  roots,  which  will  be 
fruits,  or  which  will  be  other  slabs.  It  is  as  though 
the  cactus,  inured  by  hardship  and  prepared  for 
any  emergency,  waits  until  the  very  last  possible 
moment  to  settle  upon  the  best-suited  means  of 
reproduction — as  though  the  bud,  having  started, 
becomes  a  root  if  it  finds  encouragement  for  roots, 
or  a  fruit  if  seed  seems  desirable,  or  an  upward 
slab  if  this  can  be  supported. 

Nor  does  its  attempt  at  reproduction  require 
much  encouragement.  Fifty  young  cactus  slabs 
laid  on  a  burlap-covered  wooden  shelf  four  feet 
above  ground  were  found  to  have  thrown  long 
roots  down  through  the  burlap  and  through  the 
cracks  of  the  boards  within  a  few  days. 

[24] 


After  a  Year  in  the  Dark 

The  big  cactus  leaf  shown  here  lay  forgotten  for  one  year,  in 

a  dark  closet  in  Mr.  Burbank's  old  homestead.     By  accident,  the 

door  of  the  closet  was  left  open  for  a  few  days,  allowed  a  faint  light 

to  reach  it,  and  the  slab  responded  by  throwing  out  a  large  but 

sickly  looking  baby  slab  toward  the  light.     During  its  year  in 

the  dark,  this  slab  of  course  had  no  moisture  except  what 

was  contained  within  itself  and  the  only  evidence  of 

its  deprivation  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  at  the 

bottom   of   the   slab   and   in   other  spots   the 

fiber    has    begun    to    turn    to    wood. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

A  cactus  plant  pulled  from  the  ground  and 
tied  by  a  string  to  the  branch  of  a  tree  remained 
hanging  in  the  air  for  six  years  and  eight  months. 
During  this  time  it  had  no  source  of  nourishment, 
and  its  slabs  withered  and  turned  brown.  But, 
planted  again  by  sticking  one  of  its  slabs  six 
inches  in  the  ground,  it  immediately  took  root, 
and  within  a  few  weeks  began  to  throw  out  new 
blossoms  and  slabs. 

Another  detached  cactus  slab,  long  forgotten 
in  a  closet,  and  after  having  been  in  the  dark 
for  more  than  a  year,  was  found  to  have  thrown 
out  a  sickly  looking  baby  slab  when  the  closet 
door  was  left  open  for  a  few  days. 

The  more  the  adaptability  of  the  present- 
day  cactus  and  its  tenacious  hold  on  life  are 
observed,  the  easier  it  becomes  to  understand 
its  fight  against  a  devouring  enemy  which  lived 
during   the   desert-forming  age,   and   to   see   the 

origin  of  the  thorny  cactus  of  today. 
*       *       *       *       * 

Nor  is  the  cactus  the  only  desert  plant  which 
shows  evidences  of  such  a  struggle. 

The  goldenrods  of  the  desert  are  more  bitter 
than  the  goldenrods  of  the  plains. 

The  wormwood  of  the  desert  is  more  bitter 
even  than  the  wormwood  which  grows  where  there 
have  been  fewer  enemies. 

[26] 


A  Typical  Cactus  Flower 

However    much    the    cactus    offends    by    the 

ugliness  of  its  grim   armor,  it  more   than  makes   up  by 

the  beauty  of  its  flower.     Most  cactus  flowers  are  large,  delicate  and 

of  brilliant  color;  ranging  from   perfect  whites   to  deep 

reds — from   bright  yellows   to  rich  purples. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

The  yuccas,  the  aloes,  the  euphorbias,  all  have 
counterparts  in  their  families  which,  needing  less 
protection,  show  less  bitterness,  less  poison,  fewer 
spines. 

And  even  rare  cactus  plants  from  protected 
localities,  and  those  of  the  less  edible  varieties, 
give  evidence,  by  the  fewness  of  their  spines,  that 
their  family  struggle  has  been  less  intense  than 
the   struggle   of   the   cactus    which   found   itself 

stranded  in  the  bed  of  a  former  inland  sea. 

***** 

Plants  which  have  shown  even  greater  adaptive 
powers  than  the  cactus  are  to  be  found  in  the  well 
known  algae  family. 

One  branch  of  this  family  furnishes  an  apt 
illustration  of  the  scant  nourishment  to  which  a 
plant  may  adapt  itself. 

Microscopic  in  size,  it  lives  its  life  on  the  upper 
crust  of  the  Arctic  snow  storing  up  enough  energy 
in  the  summer,  when  the  sun's  rays  liquefy  a  thin 
film  of  water  on  the  icy  surface,  to  sustain  life  in 
a  dormant  stage  during  the  northern  winter's  six 
months  of  night. 

With  nothing  but  the  moisture  yielded  from 
the  snow,  and  what  nutriment  it  can  gather  from 
the  air,  this  plant,  called  the  red  snow  plant, 
multiplies  and  prospers  to  the  extent  that  it  covers 
whole   hillsides   of   snow  like   a   blanket — covers 

[28] 


ON  ENVIRONMENT 

them  so  completely  that  the  reddish  color  of  the 
plant,  imparted  to  the  snow,  first  gave  rise  to  the 
tales  of  far  northern  travelers  as  to  the  color  of  the 
snowfall  and  explained  the  apparent  phenomenon 
of  red  snow. 

Another  division  of  this  family,  going  to  the 
opposite  extreme,  thrives  in  the  waters  of  Arrow- 
head Sulphur  Springs  in  California — lives  its  life 
and  reproduces  itself  in  water  so  hot  that  eggs  may 
be  easily  cooked  in  it. 

Contrasted  with  these  microscopic  members, 
one  thriving  on  the  Arctic  snows,  the  other  in  water 
at  the  boiling  point,  there  is  still  another  member 
of  this  family  which  has  become  the  largest  plant 
in  the  world.  This,  the  gigantic  seaweed  of  the 
Sargasso  Sea,  is  taller  and  larger  than  the  greatest 
giant  redwood  which  California  has  produced. 

And  so  on;  some  of  this  family  of  the  algae 
grow  on  and  in  animals,  some  on  other  plants, 
some  on  iron,  some  on  dry  rocks,  some  in  fresh 
water,  and  some  in  the  salt  seas. 

The  monkey-puzzle  tree,  a  form  of  which  is 
illustrated  by  a  direct  color  photograph  print, 
shows  an  adaptability  to  environment  as  striking 
as  that  of  the  cactus — although  for  an  entirely 
different  purpose. 

At  the  top  of  the  monkey-puzzle  tree,  so  called, 

[29] 


The  Monkey-Puzzle  Tree 


A    striking    example   of   spines    for   protection,    this    tree 

bears  but  few  seeds  and  protects   them,  with  a  spiny  armor, 

from  destruction  by  monkeys.     The  nuts  are  borne  at,  or  very  near 

the  top,  and  the  spines  are  so  sharp  that  it  is  impossible  for 

any     animal     to     climb     the     tree.      Where     the     cactus 

spines    are    designed    to    protect    the    plant    itself, 

the    monkey-puzzle    spines    are    designed    to 

protect     the    offspring    of    the    plant, 

represented     by     its     seed. 


V 


f 


ON  ENVIRONMENT 

are  borne  several  nuts  containing  the  seed  of  the 
plant. 

In  the  case  of  the  cactus  the  thorns  were  thrown 
out  to  protect  the  plant  itself  from  destruction,  but 
in  the  case  of  the  monkey-puzzle  tree  the  animals 
threatened  not  the  tree  itself  but  its  offspring — its 
nuts  were  so  highly  prized  by  the  monkeys,  and 
their  number  was  so  few,  that  it  was  forced  to  take 
protective  measures  to  keep  its  seed  out  of  the 
reach  of  enemies. 

From  this  we  begin  to  see  that  each  plant  has 
its  own  family  individuality,  its  own  family 
personality.  Some  plants,  in  order  to  insure 
reproduction,  produce  hundreds  or  thousands  of 
seeds,  relying  on  the  fact  that  in  an  over-supply 
a  few  will  likely  be  saved  and  germinated;  while 
other  plants  producing  only  a  few  seeds  protect 
them  with  hard  shells  or  bitter  coverings,  or,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  monkey-puzzle  tree,  with  sharp 

spines  which  make  access  impossible. 

***** 

In  the  deep  canyons  of  California's  mountains 
there  grows  a  member  of  the  lily  family,  the 
trillium. 

At  the  bottom  of  these  canyons  there  are  places 
where  the  sunshine  strikes  but  one  side.  The 
flowers  on  the  shady  side  of  the  canyons  are  larger, 
and  the  leaves  of  the  plants  are  broader,  and  the 

[31] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

bulbs  are  nearer  the  surface  than  those  of  the 
plants  which  grow  where  the  sun  gets  at  them. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  same  canyons  the 
bulbs  grow  deep  in  the  soil,  and  the  leaves  and  the 
blossoms  transform  themselves  to  protect  their 
moisture  from  the  sun. 

Which  is  all  that  the  cactus  did  when  the  sea 

was  turned  into  a  desert. 

***** 

Along  the  Pacific  coast  from  Oregon  well  down 
into  California,  there  grows  a  common  wild  flower 
of  the  pipewort  family. 

Inland  a  little  way,  say  ten  or  fifteen  miles,  the 
stalk  of  this  plant  is  smooth  and  with  hardly  the 
suspicion  of  a  hair.  But  along  the  shore,  where 
the  northwest  winds  pick  up  all  of  the  finer 
particles  from  the  beach  and  form  a  sand  blast, 
the  plant  has  developed  a  stalk  so  covered  with 
hairs  that  it  is  as  woolly,  almost,  as  a  sheep — 
perfectly  protected  against  the  sand-enemy. 

Which  is  all  that  the  cactus  did  when  the 
antelopes  came  to  destroy  it. 

***** 

Let  the  cactus,  battle-scarred  and  inured  to 
hardship,  teach  us  our  first  great  lesson  in  plant 
improvement: 

That  our  plants  are  what  they  are  because 
of  environment;   that  simply  by  observing  their 

[32] 


s 


*  © 


2.  ~-» 
a      5  « 

c    ft 

a  a,^w 
,S  3 


a*  a 


~  c  «s  ~-s  a  a  »  Sic  2 

fc-a-o  a  §•*,  a  a  g  S 

a  5.?      ???.»S 


^a 


a  « 


a  a 
a.  2  »  3 


5-ff^"a  »3  9 
a*  a  2  ™.-*  ° 

" a3sS§. 
*«.«>«!!  a- 

a  a  a- 
a  a 


**  a  c 
-i  a  ~  © 

a         »-<, 

"2.0  a  = 


?304» 

Go 

2  2.     a 
a  5  a  2. 


'S.a.S 
o  t»  c.  3  ~  sw 

fa.!"*-   5 


55    <t 


s  s  a  § 
a  a  2  ~ 


1  a  •«  >_.  »> 
a  »xt>jo  H 
o>     <a  a  a  09 

2. 3  o«  &•  *  a 

3  S^a  « 
c  a  a  5  "s 
I  a- a  -    ~ 

o  1  3  a  <»  a 
a-  a. «  09  oj  i 


a  Sg-'S. 

=aSl2Q 

■—  a. 


a  2.2  a 
a  a-g-a 
~  r^.  a.  <*- 
©  ft"  o 


3   -   ^  a  2 

?ft        a  3  n 

a -a,  ~2 

«  a  »  «  a  a 

a  »  a,  ?  "i 


Co 

S' 

re 

re* 

tr. 

Ge 

n 

a 

05 


TO 


:»o?' 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

structures,  their  tendencies,  their  habits,  their  indi- 
vidual peculiarities,  we  can  read  their  histories 
back  ages  and  ages  before  there  were  men  and 
animals — read  it,  almost,  as  an  open  book;  that 
our  plants  have  lived  their  lives  not  by  quiet 
rote  and  rule,  but  in  a  turmoil  of  emergency; 
and,  just  as  they  have  always  changed  with  their 
surroundings,  so  now,  day  by  day,  they  continue 
to  change  to  fit  themselves  to  new  environments; 
and  that  we,  to  bring  forth  new  characteristics  in 
them,  to  transform  them  to  meet  our  ideals,  have 
but  to  surround  them  with  new  environments — not 
at  haphazard,  but  along  the  lines  of  our  definite 
desires. 


— 7s  not  the  really 
wonderful  thing 
the  fact  that  the 
plants  grow  at  all? 


Twenty-Three  Potato  Seeds 
and 

What  They  Taught 

A  Glimpse  at 
the  Influence  of  Heredity 


THE  springtime  buds  unfold  into  leaves 
before  our  eyes — without  our  seeing  them 
unfold.  We  have  grown  accustomed  to 
look  for  bare  limbs  in  March;  to  find  them  hidden 
by  heavy  foliage  in  May;  and  because  the  process 
is  slow  and  tedious,  and  because  it  goes  on  always, 
everywhere  about  us,  we  are  apt  to  count  it 
commonplace. 

Just  as  we  can  understand  that  the  tree  in  our 
yard,  responding  to  its  environment — to  the  April 
showers,  to  the  warm  noons  of  May,  to  the  heat 
of  summer  and  to  the  final  chill  of  fall — has 
completed  a  transformation  in  a  year,  so,  too, 
can  we  more  easily  understand  the  gradual  trans- 
formation of  the  cactus  in  an  age.  So,  too,  can 
we  realize  that  the  individual  steps  between  the 
first  ineffectual  hairy  protuberance,  and  the  final 

[Volume  I — Chapter  II] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

spiny  armor,  each  a  stronger  attempt  to  respond 
to  environment,  were  so  gradual  as  to  be  almost 

imperceptible. 

***** 

But  those  rudimentary,  half  formed  leaves 
which  come  forth  from  every  eye  of  the  cactus 
slab  before  the  thorns  or  fruits  come  out — those 
leaves  which,  as  if  seeing  that  they  have  no  useful 
purpose,  as  if  realizing  that  they  are  relics, 
only,  of  a  bygone  day,  drop  off  and  die — what 
environment  has  acted  to  bring  them  forth? 

And  those  two  smooth  slabs  that  push  out  when 
the  tiny  seedling  has  just  poked  its  thorny  head 
above  the  ground — to  what  environment  do  they 
respond? 

How  shall  we  account  for  this  tendency  in  a 
plant  to  jump  out  of  its  own  surroundings,  and 
out  of  the  surroundings  of  its  parents,  and  their 
parents  and  those  before  them — and  to  respond 
to  the  influences  which  surrounded  an  extinct 
ancestor — to  hark  back  to  the  days  when  the 
desert  was  the  moist  bottom  of  an  evaporating 
sea  and  before  the  animals  came  to  destroy? 

*  *  w  *  * 

A  group  of  scientists  were  chatting  with  Luther 
Burbank  when  a  chance  remark  on  heredity  led 
one  of  them  to  tell  this  bear  story. 

It  seemed,  so  the  story  ran,  that  a  baby  bear 

[36] 


ON  HEREDITY 

had  been  picked  up  by  miners  within  a  few  days 
after  its  birth — before  its  eyes  had  opened.  The 
cub,  in  fact,  was  so  small  that  it  was  carried 
several  miles  to  the  camp  tied  in  the  sleeve  of 
the  coat  of  one  of  the  miners. 

Raised  to  adult  bearhood  by  these  miners, 
without  ever  having  seen  another  bear — relieved  of 
the  necessity  of  finding  its  own  food  and  removed 
from  the  wild  environment  of  its  ancestors — this 
bear  became  as  thoroughly  domesticated,  almost, 
as  a  tabby  cat. 

What  would  such  a  bear  do  if  thrown  on  its 
own  resources?  Would  it  have  to  begin  at  the 
beginning  to  learn  bear-lore? 

Bears  are  great  salmon  fishers,  for  example. 

But  is  this  skill  taught  by  the  mother  to  the 
baby  bear — or  is  it  a  part  of  every  bear  at  birth? 
That  was  the  question  of  interest. 

When  the  animal  had  arrived  at  maturity,  it 
was  taken,  one  day,  to  a  shallow  salmon  stream. 

Here  was  a  bear  which  had  never  fished  for 
salmon,  and  had  never  tasted  fish;  a  bear  which, 
if  bears  have  a  language,  had  not  received  a 
moment  of  instruction  in  self  support;  a  bear 
which,  taken  before  its  eyes  were  open,  had  never 
seen  its  mother,  had  never  known  an  influence 
outside  of  the  artificial  atmosphere  of  the  mining 
camp. 

[37] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

Brought  to  the  salmon  stream,  however,  there 
was  not  an  instant  of  delay;  it  glanced  about, 
located  a  natural  point  of  vantage,  straddled  the 
brook  with  its  face  down-stream,  and  bending 
over,  with  upraised  right  paw,  waited  for  the 
salmon  to  come. 

It  did,  unhesitatingly,  just  what  any  normal 
wild-raised  bear  would  have  done. 

With  wonderful  dexterity  it  was  able  to  scoop 
the  onrushing  salmon  out  of  the  stream  and  to 
throw  them  in  an  even  pile  on  the  bank  with  a 
single  motion. 

As  other  bears  would  do,  this  domesticated 
bruin  stood  over  the  stream  until  it  had  accumu- 
lated a  considerable  pile  of  the  salmon  on  the 
bank. 

Going  to  this  pile  it  quickly  sorted  over  the 
fish,  making  now  two  piles  instead  of  one — with 
all  the  male  salmon  in  one  pile,  and  all  the  female 
salmon  in  the  other. 

Then,  with  its  sharp  claw,  it  proceeded  to  split 
open  the  female  salmon  and  to  extract  the  roe, 
which  it  ate  with  relish.  This  consumed,  it 
finished  its  meal  on  the  other  meat  of  the  fish. 

Untaught,  it  recognized  salmon  as  food;  dis- 
tinguished males  from  females;  knew  the  roe  as 
a  delicacy.  Unpracticed,  it  knew,  instantly,  just 
how  to  fish  for  salmon  and  how  to  find  the  roe. 

[38] 


An  Ancestral  Secret 

When    the    rapid    growing    eucalyptus    tree    pushes    out    its 

leaves   it  discloses   one  of  the  secrets  of  its  ancestry.     Some  of 

the  leaves,  like  those  at   the   top  of  the  branch   pictured  above,  are 

narrow  and  long.     Others,  lower  down,  are  much  broader.     On  a  single 

tree  it  is  common  to  find  five  or  six  different  kinds  of  leaves  seeming, 

when  laid  side  by  side,  as  though  they  must  have  come  from  separate 

plants.     The  history  of  the  eucalyptus,  as  disclosed  by  its  leaves,  its 

quick  growth,  and  other  characteristics,  is  that  one  time  it  was  an  herb 

— perhaps  an  annual.     To  fit  themselves  to  some  new  environment,  its 

ancestors  succeeded  in  establishing  themselves  as  perennials.    But  this 

change  ivas  so  recent  that  the  evidences  of  the  transition  are  still 

to  be  found  in  the  leaves  of  all  young  eucalyptus  trees  today, 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

"Right  here  on  this  experiment  farm,"  spoke 
up  Mr.  Burbank,  "you  might  find  hundreds  of 
evidences  of  heredity  more  striking  than  that — 
more  striking  because  they  are  the  evidences  of 
heredity  in  plant  life,  instead  of  in  animal  life. 

"Right  here,"  said  he,  "you  will  find  plants 
which  show  tendencies  unquestionably  inherited 
from  a  line  of  ancestry  going  back  perhaps  ten 
thousand  years  or  more — tendencies,  some  of 
them,  which  now  seem  strangely  out  of  place 
because  the  conditions  which  gave  rise  to  them 
in  their  ancestors  no  longer  exist;  tendencies  like 
those  of  the  cactus  and  the  blackberry  to  protect 
themselves  from  wild  beasts  when  wild  beasts  are 
no  longer  enemies;  tendencies  to  deck  themselves 
in  colors  designed  to  attract  the  insects  of  a 
forgotten  age — insects  which,  perhaps,  no  man  has 
ever  seen. 

"Where  some  incredulity  might  be  expressed 
as  to  whether  the  bear  had  not  actually  been  taught 
to  fish  for  salmon,  or  seen  another  bear  perform 
the  act,  there  can  be  no  such  question  in  the  case 
of  heredity  in  plants. 

"Here,"  said  he,  as  a  bed  of  sweet  peas  was 
approached,  "is  a  plant  which  has  inherited  the 
climbing,  twining  tendency. 

"That  is  an  evidence  that,  at  some  time 
back  in  its  history,  this  plant  has  probably  been 

[40] 


ON  HEREDITY 

crowded  for  room.  Plants  which  grow  high  do  so 
usually  because,  at  some  stage  in  their  existence, 
they  have  had  to  grow  high  to  get  the  sun  and  the 
air  which  they  need.  Low-lying  plants,  like  the 
pumpkin  for  example,  give  evidence  that  they  have 
always  enjoyed  plenty  of  space  in  which  to  spread 
out. 

"The  bear  of  your  story  may^  have  slipped 
away,  unknown  to  its  keepers,  and  seen  another 
bear  fish  for  salmon;  but  if  these  tendencies  and 
traits,  and  if  the  ability  to  perform  the  feats 
necessary  for  existence  are  not  passed  down  from 
mother  to  son — if  they  do  not  come  down  through 
the  line  of  ancestry,  if  all  of  the  old  environments 
of  the  past  have  not  accumulated  into  trans- 
missible heredity,  what  enables  that  sweet  pea  to 

twine  around  the  stake?" 

***** 

"A  closer  observation  of  the  sweet  pea  will 
show  us  that  its  tendrils  are  really  modified  leaves, 
produced,  like  the  spines  of  the  cactus,  by  ages  of 
environment  which,  added  up,  combine  to  make 
heredity;  and  that  their  actual  sensitiveness  to 
touch  is  so  highly  developed  that  they  almost 
instantly  encircle  and  hold  fast  to  any  suitable 
support  within  their  reach. 

"It  would  be  interesting  to  take  a  motion 
picture  of  a  sweet  pea  as  it  grows,  as  similar 

[41] 


Unblended  Heredities 

The   two  dahlias  shown  in  this  direct  color  photograph 

print    illustrate    the   freaks    which    heredity   sometimes    plays. 

Sometimes,  when  two  widely  separated  strains  of  heredity  are  brought 

together  in  a  single  plant,  or  animal,  the  result  is  a  blend;  but 

in  these  dahlias,  as  will  be  seen,  some  of  the  petals  take 

back  to  one  line  of  ancestry  while  others  take  back, 

equally  distinctly,  to  another.     No  man  can 

predict  the  outcome  when  two  separate 

strains    of    heredity    are    mixed. 


ON  HEREDITY 

motion  pictures  have  been  taken;  making  our 
separate  snapshots  one  every  three  minutes 
instead  of  fifteen  or  sixteen  to  the  second,  so  that 
the  reel  would  cover  a  period  of  fifteen  days;  then, 
with  a  fifteen  day  history  recorded  on  our  film,  to 
run  it  through  the  projecting  lantern  at  the  rate 
of  fifteen  or  sixteen  pictures  to  the  second,  thus 
showing  in  seven  or  eight  minutes  the  motions 
of  growth  which  actually  took  fifteen  days  to 
accomplish;  on  the  screen  before  us,  with  quick, 
darting  motions,  we  should  see  the  sweet  pea 
wriggle  and  writhe  and  squirm — we  should  see  it 
wave  its  tendrils  around  in  the  air,  feeling  out 
every  inch  within  its  reach  for  possible  supports 
on  which  to  twine. 

"We  should  see,  by  condensing  half  a  month 
of  its  life  into  an  eight  minute  reel,  that  this  sweet 
pea  has  inherited  an  actual  intelligence — slow  in 
its  operation,  but  positive,  certain — an  inherited 
intelligence  which  would  be  surprising,  even,  in 

an  animal." 

***** 

"All  through  plant  life  we  find  these  undeniable 
evidences  of  heredity. 

"I  have  here,  for  example,  two  tiny  seedlings 
which  look  almost  alike.  They  are  distantly 
related.  One  is  the  acacia  and  the  other  the 
sensitive  plant. 

[43] 


•  si 

•e        a 

a     .~  c 

•5  »)  ^.  «» 

K  s"a  *: 

W  B      - 

V 

«  "«- 
«-    C      - 

=»5J  a  s 


=>  ^ 


<u  C  S  ¥ 

«  a 

">  C   C 


C  C  B 
a.  .  fe 
50  .£  ■£ 

«    »"£ 

a      a 
a  »> 


5  =:! 


a      a  c 

B   n.  4»   S 


5  r  " 


©•S 
n  it; 

Qt  <n 


a  "3 

-  JS  S 

*.&.     = 
^  u  c  £ 

*"  a  c  w 

•a-~ 
3 


,*■ 


5  3 
~-a 


S  »•  s. s  n  3  S.--* 
s  3      -»"a  «;  <s- 


3 


»  3 "  : 


4* 


3  5. 


=•  S  8  S 

,  r-.  ffc    ~».  <^    **• 

<3"=o  -     3  3 

«      £.-*-» 
C-~  B"  Ja- 
rs 3  "*  B  "• 

3      *  ~* 

co  a 


?"B  ? 

3° 


5  a 

a  r»  u 
B.B  S. 


rt>  r»^:g  ~p  © 
'  „_"B 


—  ~  S-  O  -.       S-  to  o 


3  3~s~ 

a  n  a,  s;  t. 


«    Co 


as 


O 


<a  c» 


ca    r^.  CO 


33 
© 


3« 
3 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

"Much  as  these  plants  look  alike,  they  bear 
witness  to  the  fact  that  they  have  within  them  two 
entirely  different  strains  of  heredity. 

"The  acacia  will  permit  us  to  touch  it  and 
handle  it  without  showing  signs  of  disturbance. 

"But  its  cousin,  in  the  same  soil,  and  of  the 
same  size,  immediately  folds  up  its  leaves,  in  self 
protection,  at  the  slightest  touch. 

"From  this  we  read  the  fact  that  one  branch 
of  this  family  has  found  it  necessary  to  perfect  a 
form  of  self  defense,  while  the  other  has  had  no 
such  experience  in  its  life  history." 
***** 

"I  have  been  much  interested  lately  in  an 
experiment  with  common  clover — in  producing 
clover  leaves  with  wonderful  markings. 

"The  only  way  in  which  I  can  account  for  the 
markings  with  which  some  clover  leaves  will 
bedeck  themselves  is  that,  in  the  heredity  of  the 
plant,  there  was  a  time  when,  not  being  poisonous 
itself,  it  tried  to  simulate  the  appearance  of  some 
poisonous  plant,  to  protect  itself  from  insects. 

"At  first  thought,  it  might  require  a  stretch  of 
the  imagination  to  understand  how  this  could 
be — yet  a  closer  inquiry  shows  that  the  process 
was  as  gradual  and  as  surely  progressive  as  the 
transformation  of  the  cactus. 

"In  clover,  as  in  other  plants,  there  has  always 

[46] 


Simulating  a  Poisonous  Look 

The  clover  leaves  shown  above  reveal  a  strange  inherited 

tendency.     It  is  Mr.  Burbank's  belief  that  the  white  markings 

and  the  black  splotches,  which  can  be  readily  distinguished,  represent 

an  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  plant  to  simulate  a  poisonous  look, 

as  a  means  of  self  protection.     Although  the  tendency  to 

protect  themselves  with  these  warning  streaks  and 

blotches  of  color  is  very  strong,  yet  in  all  of 

his  experiments,  Mr.  Burbank  has  not 

found  a  single  clover  plant  which 

was    actually   poisonous. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

been  variation — some  few  individual  clover  plants 
have  always  had  the  white  and  black  markings. 

"At  some  time  in  the  history  of  the  plant  those 
without  the  markings  have  been  destroyed,  and  so, 
responding  to  this  new  environment,  the  markings 
became  more  and  more  pronounced  until  now  we 
have  not  only  white  triangular  markings,  but  ugly 
black  splotches  going  clear  through  the  leaf. 

"From  these  markings  we  can  read  the  history 
of  the  clover — most  of  the  family  having  plain 
leaves  inherited  from  an  ancestry  which  found  no 
need  to  protect  itself  from  an  enemy — with  an 
occasional  outcropping  of  poisonous-looking  color 
splotches — the  inheritance  of  scattering  environ- 
ments in  which  self  protection  was  necessary." 
***** 

"Or  we  might  consider  the  ice-plant,  so  called, 
which  protects  itself  from  the  heat  of  the  sun  by 
surrounding  itself  with  tiny  water  drops  which 
have  the  appearance  and  serve  the  same  purpose 
as  icicles;  or  the  wild  lettuce,  known  sometimes 
as  the  compass  plant,  which  turns  its  leaves  north 
and  south  so  that  only  their  edges  are  reached 
by  the  sun;  or  any  of  a  number  of  other  strange 
protective  measures  which  plants  have  perfected — 
all  manifestations  which  would  be  impossible  if 
heredity  were  not  an  ever  present,  controlling 
influence. 

[48] 


A  Living  Refrigerator 


In  this  direct  color  photograph  print  it  will  be  seen  that 

the  stems  and  leaves  are  covered  with  formations  which  appear 

to   be   tiny   icicles.      The  plant   is   known   as   the   ice  plant,   and   the 

icicles,  in  fact,  are  stored  up  moisture  which  it  saves  up  against 

the  heat  of  the  sun.      The  need  for  this  extra  moisture 

is  not  apparent  where  this  plant  now  grows,  and 

it    is    reasoned,    therefore,    that    the    plant 

has    been   stranded,    at   some   time   or 

another   in   its   history,   in  some 

unusually  hot,  dry  climate. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

"We  have,  too,  in  many  parts  of  the  country 
plants  which  have  learned  to  snare  and  trap 
insects  and  even  animals,  and  to  digest  them  and 
to  live  on  them. 

"Among  these  carnivorous  plants  are  the  com- 
mon pitcher  plants,  and  the  Venus  fly  trap. 

"The  pitcher  plants,  instead  of  belonging  only 
to  one  family,  are  to  be  found  in  a  number  of 
different  families,  thus  showing  that  environment 
has  produced  a  similar  strain  of  heredity  in 
separate  kinds  of  plants  which  are  not  kin  to 
each  other. 

"One  of  the  pitcher  plants  which  grows  abun- 
dantly in  the  moist  places  of  the  Sierras  and  in 
northern  California  even  catches  frogs,  small 
animals  and  birds.  The  plant  seems  especially 
devised  to  lure  the  animals  into  its  pitcher.  Above 
the  pitcher  is  a  little  lattice  and  an  opening,  like  a 
window,  through  which  the  light  can  shine.  The 
insects  and  the  animals  see  a  haven  from  the  sun 
and  rain,  and  as  they  go  in,  there  are  little  fingers 
on  the  plant  which  push  them  along  and  keep 
them  from  coming  back. 

"Once  securely  in  the  trap,  the  plant  secretes  a 
digestive  juice,  like  our  own  gastric  juice,  and 
absorbs  the  animal  life  as  food. 

"In  these  traps  it  is  common  to  find  all  kinds 
of  insects — including   the   undigested   wings   and 

[50] 


This  Plant  Eats  Insects 

The    pitcher    plant,    shown    here,    which    grows    in    the   high 

mountains  of  California,  has  perfected  an  ingenious  contrivance 

for  catching  and  digesting  insects.   At  the  top  of  the  pitcher,  so  called, 

seen  above,  there  is  an  opaque  lattice  work  in  the  interstices  of  which 

is    a    translucent,    mica-like    substance.      The    insect,    entering    from 

beneath,  in  search  of  shelter,  finds  itself  in  a  cosy  chamber,  well  lined, 

and  weather  proof.     Once  inside  the  chamber,  however,  it  discovers 

that  it  is  being  swallowed,  irresistibly — and  the  plant  finally  deposits 

it  in  the  stomach  below,  where  it  digests  it  with  a  secretion  akin  to 

hydrochloric  acid.      There  are  several  other  known  carnivorous 

plants,  showing  that  at  some  time  in  their  ancestry,  the  soil 

has  not  given  them  sufficient  nutriment  for  their  needs. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

legs  of  beetles  and  grasshoppers  and  the  bones  of 
toads  and  frogs. 

"Is  this  not  a  more  wonderful  manifestation  of 
old  environment,  recorded  within  a  plant  in  the 
form  of  heredity,  than  even  that  of  a  bear  which 
seemed  to  have  inherited  the  intelligence  and  skill 

to  fish?" 

***** 

"To  my  mind,"  said  one  of  the  scientists,  "the 
by-product  of  your  work  is  fully  as  interesting  as 
the  work  itself — the  viewpoint  which  you  get  on 
the  forces  which  control  life  is  of  even  greater 
attraction  to  me  than  the  wonderful  productions 
which  you  have  coaxed  from  the  soil." 

"A  by-product,  no,"  said  Mr.  Burbank;  "these 
things  are  a  vital  part  of  the  day's  work.  Heredity 
is  more  a  factor  in  plant  improvement  than 
hoes  or  rakes;  a  knowledge  of  the  battle  of  the 
tendencies  within  a  plant  is  the  very  basis  of  all 
plant  improvement.  It  is  not,  as  you  seem  to  think, 
that  the  work  of  plant  improvement  brings  with 
it,  incidentally,  a  knowledge  of  those  forces.  It 
is  the  knowledge  of  those  forces,  rather,  which 

makes  plant  improvement  possible." 

***** 

"There  are  really,  after  all,  only  two  main 
influences  which  enter  into  the  make-up  of  life — 
only  two  influences  which  we  need  to  direct,  in 

[52] 


ON  HEREDITY 

order  to  change  and  control  the  characteristics  of 
any  individual  growing  thing. 

"The  first  of  these  is  environment. 

"The  rains,  the  snows,  the  fogs,  the  droughts — 
the  heat,  the  cold — the  winds,  the  change  in 
temperature  between  night  and  day — the  soil,  the 
location  in  shade  or  sun — competition  for  food, 
light,  air — the  neighbors,  whether  they  be  plant 
neighbors,  or  animal  neighbors,  or  human  neigh- 
bors— all  of  these,  and  a  thousand  other  factors 
which  could  be  thought  of,  are  the  elements  of 
environment — some  pulling  the  plant  one  way  and 
some  another,  but  each  with  its  definite,  though 
sometimes  hardly  noticeable,  influence  on  the 
individual  plant. 

"And  the  second  is  heredity: 

"Which  is  the  sum  of  all  of  the  environments 
of  a  complex  ancestry — back  to  the  beginning." 
***** 

"Just  as  with  the  bear,  if  the  story  be  true,  so 
in  plant  life.  In  every  seed  that  is  produced  there 
are  stored  away  the  tendencies  of  centuries  and 
centuries  of  ancestry.  The  seed  is  but  a  bundle  of 
tendencies. 

"When  these  tendencies  have  been  nicely 
balanced  by  a  long  continuation  of  unchanging 
environment,  the  offspring  is  likely  to  resemble  the 
parent. 

[53] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

"But  when,  through  a  change  of  environment, 
that  balance  is  disturbed,  no  man  can  predict  the 
outcome. 

"So  when  a  seed  is  planted,  no  man  can  be  sure 
whether  the  twentieth  century  tendencies  will 
predominate;  or  whether  long-forgotten  tendencies 
may  suddenly  spring  into  prominence  and  carry 
the  plant  back  to  a  bygone  age." 
***** 

"How  can  seeds  store  up  the  tendencies  of  their 
ancestry?"  some  one  asked  Mr.  Burbank. 

"How  can  your  mind  store  up  the  impressions 
which  it  receives?"  he  asked  in  reply. 

***** 

Hidden  away  in  the  twists  and  turns  of  our  own 
brains,  needing  but  the  right  conditions  to  call 
them  forth  with  vividness,  there  are  hundreds  of 
thousands,  perhaps  millions  of  impressions  which 
have  been  registered  there  day  by  day. 

The  first  childhood's  scare  on  learning  of  the 
presence  of  burglars  in  the  house  may  make  us 
supersensitive  to  night  noises  in  middle  age. 

The  indelible  recollection  of  a  mother's  love 
and  tenderness  may  arise,  after  forty  years,  to 
choke  down  some  harsh  word  which  we  are  about 
to  utter. 

The  combined  impressions  of  a  thousand  expe- 
riences with  other  human  beings  seem  to  blend 

[54] 


ON  HEREDITY 

together  to  help  us  form  our  judgment  of  a  single 
human  being  with  whom  we  are  about  to  deal. 

As  the  weeks  have  rolled  into  months,  and  as  the 
months  have  melted  into  years,  new  impressions 
have  arisen  to  crowd  out  the  old;  stronger  impres- 
sions have  supplanted  the  weak,  bigger  impressions 
have  taken  the  place  of  lesser  ones — but  the  old 
impressions  are  always  there — always  blending 
themselves  into  our  judgments,  our  ambitions,  our 
desires,  our  ideals — always  ready  and  waiting, 
apparently,  to  single  themselves  out  and  appear 
before  us  brilliantly  whenever  the  proper  com- 
bination of  conditions  arises. 

So,  too,  with  the  seed. 

Every  drought  that  has  caused  hardship  to  its 
ancestors  is  recorded  as  a  tendency  in  that  seed. 

Every  favoring  condition  which  has  brought  a 
forbear  to  greater  productiveness  is  there  as  a 
tendency  in  that  seed. 

Every  frost,  every  rain,  every  rise  of  the 
morning  sun  has  left  its  imprint  in  the  line  of 
ancestry  and  helped  to  mold  tendencies  to  be 
passed  from  plant  to  plant. 

Beneath  the  wooden  looking,  hard  sheathed 
covering  of  the  seed,  there  is  confined  a  bundle  of 
tendencies — an  infinite  bundle — and  nothing  more. 

One  tendency  stronger  than  another  perhaps — 
a  good  tendency  suppressing  a  bad  tendency — or 

[55] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

the  other  way;  tendencies  inherited  from  imme- 
diate parents,  tendencies  coming  down  from  wild 
ancestry,  tendencies  originating  from  the  influences 
of  twenty  centuries  or  more  ago — tendencies  which 
are  latent,  awaiting  only  the  right  combination 
of  conditions  to  bring  them  to  life;  all  of  the 
tendencies  of  a  complex  ancestry — some  lulled  to 
sleep,  but  none  obliterated;  that  is  a  seed. 
***** 

"The  whole  life  history  of  a  plant,"  said  Mr. 
Burbank,  "is  stored  away  in  its  seeds. 

"If  we  plant  enough  of  the  seeds,  in  enough 
different  environments,  we  are  sure  to  have  that 
life  history  with  all  of  its  variations,  all  of  its 
hardships,  all  of  its  improvements  and  retrogres- 
sions, uncovered  before  us." 

***** 

Which  brings  us  to  the  boyhood  lesson  which 
Luther  Burbank  learned. 

***** 

Thomas  A.  Edison  spilled  chemicals  on  the 
floor  of  a  baggage  car — lost  his  job  as  train  boy — 
and  made  electricity  his  vocation  instead  of  his 
avocation. 

Luther  Burbank  found  a  seed  ball  on  one  of 
the  plants  of  his  mother's  potato  patch. 

Who  knows  what  little  thing  will  change  a 
career?    Or  what  accident  will  transform  an  ideal? 

[56] 


How  the  Carnation  Insures  Variation — / 

This  direct  color  photograph  print,  greatly  enlarged, 

shows  that  the  carnation  has  perfected  a  device  for  insuring 

variation    equally    ingenious    as    the    geranium's.      This    photograph 

shows     the    pistil,     arising    from     the     yellowish     egg    nest, 

closed  and   unreceptive  at   the   time   that  the  pollen, 

which  may  be  seen  on  the  two  stamens  at  its 

right,     is     ready    for    distribution. 


How  the  Carnation  Insures  Variation — // 

The  pollen  has  now  disappeared  from   the  anthers  and 

the   pistil   spreads    to   receive   pollen   from   a   neighboring   carnation. 

The    fuzzy,   sticky    surface    of    the    receptive    portion    of 

the    pistil    may    be   seen    in    this    photograph. 


How  the  Carnation  Insures  Variation — 111 

This  direct  color  photograph  print  shows  the  housing 

of    the    carnation's    egg    nest    cut    away,    and    the    individual    eggs 

closeted   beneath   the  pistil  awaiting  fertilization 

can  be  clearly  distinguished. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

the    combination    between    the    two,    instead    of 
between  the  pollen  grains  and  the  eggs  of  a  single 

blossom. 

***** 

Which  is  exactly  what  the  Mother  Geranium 

intended  we  should  do. 

***** 

If  the  stigma  of  a  blossom  were  at  its  receptive 
stage  when  the  pollen  packages  around  it  burst 
open,  there  would  probably  be  combined  in  the 
seeds  of  its  egg  chamber  below,  only  the  charac- 
teristics of  one  parent  plant — only  the  tendencies 
of  a  single  line  of  ancestry. 

The  geraniums  growing  from  those  seeds  would 
be  so  like  in  their  tendencies  of  heredity  that  they 
would  differ,  individually,  only  as  their  individual 
environments  differed. 

But  when  those  eggs  have  brought  to  them 
the  pollen  from  another  plant,  there  are,  confined 
within  them,  the  tendencies  and  characteristics  of 
two  complex  lines  of  ancestry;  so  that  the  plants 
iDto  which  they  grow  will  be  encouraged  into 
variation  and  individuality,  not  as  a  result  of 
environment  alone,  but  as  a  result  of  the  countless 
tendencies  inherited  from  two  separate  lines  of 
parentage. 

What  a  scheme  for  pitting  the  old  tendencies  of 
heredity  against  the  new  tendencies  of  environ- 

[76] 


ON  VARIATION 

ment — what  an  infinite  possibility  of  combinations 

this  opens  up! 

***** 

Truly  of  a  million  geranium  blossoms  no  two 
could  be  exactly  alike — nor  any  two  of  their  five 
million  petals — nor  any  two  of  their  ten  million 
stamens — nor  any  two  of  their  hundred  million 
honey  glands — nor  any  two  of  their  billion  pollen 

granules ! 

***** 

What  we  have  seen  in  the  geranium — those 
seed-like  eggs,  the  sticky  stigma  and  that  micro- 
scopic pollen  dust,  we  may  see  in  some  form  or 
other  in  every  plant  that  grows. 

The  act  which  we  might  have  performed  to 
produce  a  new  geranium  plant — the  combination 
of  one  of  those  seeds  with  some  of  that  pollen — 
is  going  on  about  us  always,  everywhere — with  the 
bees,  and  the  butterflies,  and  the  birds,  and  the 
winds,  and  a  score  of  other  agencies  acting  to 
effect  those  combinations. 

Which  is  the  reason  for  the  candy  factory  at  the 
bottom  of  every  geranium's  little  central  well.  And 
for  those  brilliant  petals,  and  that  delicate  scent, 
and  the  picket  arrangement  of  the  stamen  stalks, 
and  the  crosswise  poise  of  their  pollen-bearing 
anthers,  and  the  central  pistil  stalk  which  rises 
upward  from  the  egg  nest — and  everything  that  is 

[77] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

beautiful  and  lovely  in  the  bloom  of  that  geranium 

— and  the  geranium  itself. 

***** 

Here  is  a  plant,  the  geranium,  so  anxious  to 
produce  variations  in  its  offspring  that  it  has  lost 
the  power  of  fertilizing  its  own  eggs  and  risked 
its  whole  posterity  upon  the  cooperation  of  a 
neighboring  plant. 

It  has  no  power  of  locomotion — no  ability  to 
get  about  from  place  to  place  in  search  of  pollen 
for  its  eggs  or  of  eggs  in  need  of  its  pollen;  nor 
has  its  neighbor;  so  they  call  in  an  outside 
messenger  of  reproduction — the  bee. 

The  geranium  makes  its  honey  at  the  bottom 
of  its  blossom.  It  places  movable  packages  of 
pollen  dust  balanced  on  springy  stamens  in  such 
a  way  that,  to  reach  the  sweets,  the  pollen  hedge 
must  be  broken  through.  It  keeps  its  egg  chamber 
closed  and  its  pistil  unreceptive  while  the  pollen 
dust  is  there,  and  as  if  to  advertise  its  hidden 
sweets  to  the  nectar  loving  bees,  it  throws  out 
shapely  petals  of  brilliant  hue  and  exudes  a 
charming  scent. 

And  thus,  the  bees,  attracted  from  afar,  crowd- 
ing into  the  tiny  wells  to  get  their  sweets,  become 
besmeared  with  pollen  dust  as  they  enter  a  pollen 
bearing  bloom — and  leave  a  load  of  pollen  dust 
wherever  they  find  a  receptive  stigma. 

[78] 


A  Pollen  Laden  Bee 

This  direct  color  photograph  print  shows  a  bee,  greatly 
enlarged,  which  was  captured  in  a  cactus  flower.     The  pollen 
grains  can  be  seen  sticking  to  its  hairy  body,  and  the  fact  that,  as  it 
crawls    into    the    next   flower,    some    of    this    pollen    will    find 
lodgment  on   the  sticky  surface  of  a  receptive  stigma  is 
easily  realized.    The  bees  gather  pollen  not  only  for 
distribution  but  for  their  own  uses.    The  two 
large  splotches  of  pollen  shown  beneath 
the  second  pair  of  legs  are  "pol- 
len dough"  which  the  bees 
carry  home  for  food. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

Where  did  the  geranium  get  its  color? 

"From  the  bees,"  said  Mr.  Burbank. 

Just  as  the  cactus  covered  itself  with  spines 
until  it  had  built  up  an  effective  armor,  in  the  same 
way  the  geranium,  by  easy  stages,  has  worked  out 
a  color  scheme  to  attract  the  bees  upon  which  it 
depends  to  effect  its  reproduction. 
***** 

In  Mr.  Burbank's  yard  there  grows,  as  this  is 
written,  a  Chinese  arum  whose  color  and  whose 
scent  reveal  a  different  history. 

Unlike  most  common  flowers  which  advertise 
to  bees  and  birds  and  butterflies,  this  plant  sends 
its  message  to  the  flies. 

Flies  feed  on  carrion.  The  nectar  of  clover  is 
not  to  their  liking  and  the  brilliant  colors  of  our 
garden  flowers  fail  to  attract  them.  Our  refuse 
is  their  food,  and  they  are  guided  to  it  by  colors 
and  scents  which  are  offensive  to  us. 

So  this  Chinese  carrion  lily,  as  it  has  been 
named — stranded  at  some  time  in  its  history, 
perhaps,  in  some  place  where  flies  were  its  only 
available  messengers  of  reproduction,  or  blooming 
at  a  period  when  other  means  were  not  within 
its  reach — has  bedecked  its  spathe  with  a  rich 
and  mottled  purple — in  color  and  in  texture 
resembling,  from  a  distance,  the  color  and 
texture  of  a  decaying  piece  of  liver. 

[80] 


A  Fly-Loving  Flower 


The  Chinese  carrion  lily  pictured  here,  advertises  to  the 

flies    to    act    as    its    messengers    of    pollenation.      The    spathe    . 

frequently  grows   to  eighteen   inches   in   length   and,  as   can   be   seen, 

though  rich  and  really  beautiful,  is  of  the  same  color  as  a  piece 

of   decaying   liver.     The   smell   emitted  from    this  flower 

is   offensive   in   the   extreme — all   an   advertisement 

to  the  flies,  which  are  carrion-loving  insects. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

Just  as  the  geranium  supplements  its  advertise- 
ment in  color  with  an  advertisement  in  scent,  so, 
too,  the  carrion  lily  has  developed  an  individual 
odor-appeal,  decidedly  like  that  of  meat  too  long 
exposed  to  the  sun. 

So  obnoxious  and  so  penetrating  is  the  odor 
of  this  flower  that  each  year  it  has  been  found 
necessary  to  cut  down  the  plant  shortly  after  it 
has  bloomed. 

And  so  truly  has  it  achieved  its  ideal  that  even 
the  buzzards,  carrion  birds  that  they  are,  attracted 
by  its  color,  its  texture  and  its  smell,  have 
descended  in  ever-narrowing  circles — only  to  fly 
away  in  disgust  when  they  found  they  had  been 
lured  by  a  flower. 

*       *       *       *       * 

Where  the  geranium  finds  it  satisfactory  merely 
to  block  the  entrance  to  its  honey  store  with  an 
array  of  pollen  bundles  which  must  be  pushed 
aside  by  the  entering  insect,  the  Chinese  carrion 
lily  makes  doubly  sure  of  pollenation  by  means 
of  a  still  more  ingenious  device. 

The  fry,  attracted  by  the  color  of  the  spathe  and 
guided  by  the  hidden  odor  at  the  base  of  the  flower, 
lights  on  the  sturdy  spadix  and  uses  it  as  a  ladder 
for  descent.  The  opening  around  the  spadix  is 
just  large  enough  to  afford  a  comfortable  passage 
way;  but  once  within  the  well,  the  spathe  closes  in 

[82] 


ON  VARIATION 

and  snugly  hugs  the  spadix,  so  that  the  fly,  buzzing 
about  in  the  chamber  below,  becomes  thoroughly 
covered  with  the  pollen  dust. 

This    done,    the    flower    slowly    unfolds    and 
permits  the  pollen  laden  insect  to  escape. 
***** 

Many  other  flowers  show  equal  or  greater 
ingenuity. 

In  some  varieties  of  the  sage,  the  pollen-bear- 
ing stamens  actually  descend  and  quickly  rub  the 
yellow  dust  on  either  side  of  the  insect,  after  which 
they  fall  back  into  their  former  position  above  the 
nectar  cells. 

Most  of  the  orchids,  too,  show  an  unusual 
ingenuity. 

One  species  bears  its  pollen  in  small  bundles, 
the  base  of  each  bundle  being  a  sticky  disc.  The 
structural  arrangement  of  the  flower  is  such  that 
the  insect  cannot  secure  its  nectar  without  carrying 
away  at  least  one  of  the  bundles.  A  pollen  bundle 
glues  itself  to  the  head  of  the  insect  and  curves 
upward  like  a  horn. 

As  soon  as  the  insect  has  withdrawn  from  the 
flower,  this  pollen  horn  bends  downward  in  front 
of  the  insect,  close  to  its  head,  so  that  when  the 
next  flower  is  entered  the  dust  can  hardly  fail  to 
reach  a  receptive  portion  of  the  pistil. 

In  this  orchid  there  is  but  a  single  receptive 

[83] 


The  Orchid  Awaiting  an  Insect 

Flowers  are  usually  not  only  designed  by   their  general 
shape    to   attract   insects,    but   their   nectar   store   is   often   sur- 
rounded   by   a    target   of   some   kind — sometimes    of   color   only,   and 
sometimes  as  in  the  case  of  the  orchid,  a  folded  leaf  which  guides  the 
insect  in.    Almost  all  flowers,  in  this  way,  have  centers  which 
are   white,  or  more   brilliant   than,   or  different  from   the 
rest  of  their  color,  as   if  to  lead  the   insect  to   its 
work    with    the    least    possible    delay.     The 
orchid's    pollen    may    be    seen    in    this 
photograph  print  directly  in  the 
center    of    the    flower. 


The  Orchid's  Pollen  Bundles 

With    the   rest   of   the    blossom    torn    away,    the   orchid's 

pollen    bundles    and    its    sticky    stigma    may    be    seen    in    this 

photograph   print.     These   bundles  attach    themselves   to   the   head   of 

the  insect,  sticking  out  like  a  horn  so  that  the  next  flower  visited  will 

be    sure    to    receive    its    charge    of    pollen.     The    sticky    stigma 

can  be  seen  in  this  print  directly  beneath  the  two  pollen 

bundles    at    the    top.     The    petal    itself    of    course 

is   bent  down   to  show   the  structure,   but   it 

can    be    seen    that    the    colors    and    all 

of  the  lines   lead  to   the   central 

point  as  if  to  guide  the  bee. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

stigma  and  the  pollen  bundles  are  separate  and 
single,  too;  but  in  another  orchid  which  has  two 
receptive  stigmas,  the  pollen  bundles  are  in  doub- 
lets, held  together  with  a  strap. 

Thus    the   insect   visiting    this    second    orchid 
carries  away  two  pollen  bundles  on  its  forehead, 
each  so  nicely  placed  that  their  dust  will  reach 
both  sticky  stigmas  of  the  next  flower  entered. 
***** 

Similarly,  the  pollen  of  the  milkweed  is  stored 
in  two  little  bags,  connected  by  a  strap.  When 
the  bee  visits  the  flower  its  feet  become  entangled 
in  this  strap  and  when  it  leaves  it  carries  both  bags 
with  it. 

And  so,  throughout  the  whole  range  of  plant 
life,  each  fresh  investigation  would  show  a  new 
display  of  ingenuity — infinite  ingenuity  directed 
toward  the  single  end  of  combining  the  tendencies 
of  two  lines  of  heredity — so  that  the  offspring  may 
be  different  from  and  better  than  the  parent. 

We  should  see  that  there  are  those  flowers 
which  bloom  only  in  the  night.  Flowers  which,  as 
if  having  tried  to  perfect  a  lure  for  the  insects  of 
the  day,  and  having  failed,  have  reversed  the  order 
of  things  and  send  forth  blossoms  of  white  or 
yellow — luminous  colors  always — to  attract  the 
moths  that  fly  after  the  sun  goes  down. 

We  should  find  many  interesting  half  hours 

[86] 


A  Humming  Bird  Flower 

The    common    nasturtium    may    be    taken    as    a    type    of 
flower  which   advertises  to   the   birds  rather  than  to  the  bees. 
The  honey   is   stored   at   the   bottom    of  a   long   tube   down   which   a 
bee  could  hardly  stretch  its  proboscis.     In  many  other  ways, 
including    the   arrangement   of   the   stamens   and   pistils, 
bird  flowers  show  their  adaptation  to  the  partner- 
ship   which    their    ancestors    have    built    up. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

of  wonder  contemplating  such  flowers  as  the 
honeysuckle,  the  nasturtium  and  many  of  the 
lilies — which  have  taken  special  precaution  to 
place  their  nectar  in  long,  horn-like  tubes,  out  of 
the  reach  of  insects,  so  that  only  the  birds  may 
become  their  messengers  of  reproduction. 

We  should  see  the  pathos  of  those  flowers 
which  advertise  for  insects  that  rarely  come.  The 
barberry,  for  example,  which  can  be  pollenated 
only  during  the  bright  hours  of  a  cloudless  day, 
and  during  a  time  so  short  that  there  is  little 
chance  of  pollen  being  brought  by  insects  from 
other  blossoms.  Each  barberry  blossom,  ready 
for  the  insect  if  it  should  come,  but  as  if  expecting 
disappointment,  makes  sure  of  self  perpetuation, 
if  not  of  self  improvement,  by  jabbing  its  pollen 
laden  anthers  on  its  own  stigma  with  a  motion  as 
positive  and  as  accurate  as  the  jump  of  a  cat. 

Or  the  fennel  flower  of  France,  in  which  the 
several  pistils  bend  over  and  take  pollen  from  the 
stamens  around  them  and  straighten  up  again. 

Or  the  flowers  of  the  nettle,  in  which  the 
stamens  increase  their  height  with  a  sudden 
spring-like  action,  showering  the  pollen  up  over 
the  receptive  stigma. 

We  should  observe  that  wheat  and  some  of  the 
other  grains,  as  though  discouraged  by  centuries 
and  centuries  of  failure  to  secure  variation,  had 

[88] 


ON  VARIATION 

settled  down  to  the  steady  task  of  reproducing 
their  kind  exactly  as  it  is,  depending  only  on 
individual  environment  for  individuality,  and 
ensuring  reproduction  by  self  pollenation. 

We  should  see  plants  in  all  stages  of  their 
attempts  to  keep  their  kind  on  the  upward  trend; 
we  should  see  a  range  of  ingenuity  so  great  that 
no  man,  no  matter  how  many  of  his  days  have 
been  devoted  to  the  study  of  plants  and  their  ways, 

can  ever  become  dulled  to  its  wonders. 

***** 

"I  bought  some  extremely  expensive  seed  corn 
several  years  back,"  complained  a  Santa  Rosa 
farmer.  "But,  just  as  I  expected,  it  ran  down. 
The  first  year's  corn  was  fine,  and  so  was  the 
second;  but  now  it  has  gone  clear  back  to  ordinary 
corn.    This  plant  improvement  doesn't  pay." 

"Do  you  know  how  corn  reproduces  itself?" 
asked  Mr.  Burbank. 

"Do  you  realize  that  if  you  plant  good  corn  on 
one  side  of  a  fence,  and  inferior  corn  on  the  other, 
the  corn  cannot  see  the  fence? 

"Would  you  expect  that  a  cross  between  a  race 
horse  and  some  family  dobbin  would  produce  a 
line  of  racers? 

"Separate  your  good  corn  from  your  poor, 
and  keep  it  by  itself,  and  you  will  find  that  it  does 
not  run  down,  but  even  gradually  improves." 

[89] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

Every  farmer  knows  that  corn  must  be  planted 
in  large  quantities  close  together — that  a  single 
kernel  of  corn,  planted  in  one  corner  of  a  lot, 
apart  from  other  growing  corn,  would  be  non- 
productive. 

Yet  how  many  of  those  who  depend  upon  corn 
for  their  living  fully  realize  the  reason  for  this? 

The  geranium,  with  its  nectar,  its  scent,  its 
color  and  its  structural  arrangement,  has  built 
up  a  partnership  with  the  bee  to  perform  its 
pollenation. 

While  corn,  with  no  advertisement,  no  honey, 
no  brilliant  reds,  no  scent,  has  developed  an 
equally  effective  plan  of  making  the  breezes  act 

as  its  messenger  of  reproduction. 

***** 

Here  is  a  plant,  tall  and  supple,  that  responds 
with  graceful  movements  to  the  slightest  breath  of 
air.  At  its  top  it  holds  a  bunch  of  pollen  laden 
tassels — swaying  tassels  which,  with  each  back- 
ward and  forward  movement,  discharge  their  tiny 
pollen  grains  in  clouds,  which  slowly  settle  to  the 
ground. 

Below,  on  the  stalk  of  the  plant,  are  the  ears  of 
corn,  containing  row  after  row  of  the  egg  kernels, 
needing  but  combination  with  pollen  from  above 
to  become,  each,  a  seed  capable  of  starting  another 
corn  plant  on  its  life. 

[90] 


An  Experiment  in  Corn 

The  ear  of  corn  shown  at  the  left  is  one  which,  on  an 

ordinary    corn    plant,    was    allowed    to    take    its    course.      The 

whlnrZ  °ne„which   w™.  ^vered   with   a  paper  bag  at  the   time 

Vt  1 ,4  Pf  fn   WaS  flying-      The  ^ands  of  silk  thus   being 

protected    from    pollen,    the    kernels     beneath     did    not 

mature.     It  will  be  seen  from  this  that  the  breezes 

are   as    necessary    to    the    corn   plant   as    the 

bees   and   birds    are    to    the   flowers. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

Just  as  the  eggs  of  the  geranium  were  housed  in 
a  protective  covering,  so,  too,  the  corn  eggs  are 
sheathed  in  protective  husks.  And  just  as  a  tiny 
stalk  protruded  from  the  egg  chamber  of  the 
geranium,  so,  too,  does  the  silk  which  protrudes 
from  the  end  of  the  husk  serve  the  same  purpose 
for  the  corn  seed. 

Tear  the  husks  from  an  ear  of  corn,  and  it  will 
be  seen  that  each  strand  of  the  protruding  silk 
goes  back  to  an  individual  kernel  on  the  ear. 
That,  between  the  rows  of  kernels,  like  electric 
wires  in  a  conduit,  each  strand  of  the  common 
bundle  of  silk  protruding  leads  back  to  its  separate 
starting  place. 

To  combine  the  characters  of  two  parent  corn 
plants,  all  that  is  necessary  is  to  dust  the  pollen 
from  the  tassel,  of  one  on  the  silken  ducts  of  the 
ear  of  another. 

And  the  breezes,  as  the3r  swish  a  waving  field 
of  corn  gracefully  to  and  fro — as  they  play  through 
a  forest  of  pines,  or  as  they  ripple  the  grasses  of 
our  lawns — are  performing  their  function  in  the 
scheme  of  reproduction  as  effectively  as  the  bee 
does  when  it  goes  from  geranium  to  geranium 
in  search  of  sweets. 

***** 

Consider  the  simple  salt-water  cell,  as  seen 
reproducing  itself  under  the  microscope  merely 

[92] 


ON  VARIATION 

by  splitting  in  two;  and  those  two  each  becoming 
two,  and  so  on  endlessly. 

Observe  that,  with  only  a  single  line  of 
parentage  from  which  to  draw  tendencies,  the 
individualities  to  be  found  in  this,  the  lowest  form 
of  life  we  know,  are  molded  wholly  by  the  differ- 
ence in  the  saltiness  of  the  water,  or  the  variation 
in  its  temperature,  or  those  other  limited  changes 
within  a  short-lived  environment. 

And  then  consider  the  geranium,  and  the 
Chinese  arum,  and  the  orchid,  and  the  corn — with 
a  thousand  added  complications  in  their  lives 
brought  about  by  a  single  dominant  purpose — a 
thousand  self-imposed  difficulties  and  obstacles 
which  would  be  needless  except  for  that  guiding 
desire  to  give  the  offspring  a  better  chance  than 
the  parent  had! 

What  a  price  to  pay  for  variation!  What 
ingenuity  and  effort  each  new  combination  of 
heredities  has  cost!  How  many  must  have  been 
the  plants  which  advertised  for  insects  that  did 
not  come!  How  many,  finding  themselves  in  an 
unequal  struggle,  have  perished  in  the  attempt! 
***** 

Truly,  if  the  cost  of  things  may  be  taken 
as  a  measure  of  their  value,  how  much  must  this 
dearly  bought  variation  be  worth  in  the  Scheme 
of  Things! 

[93] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

"The  struggle  of  a  plant  to  secure  variation  in 
its  offspring  does  not  end  with  the  seed,"  said  Mr. 
Burbank.    "It  only  begins  there." 

***** 

In  the  tropics,  a  common  tree  near  the  seashore 
is  the  coconut  palm.  The  coconuts  which  we 
find  in  our  market,  their  hard  shells  outermost, 
are  but  the  inside  portion  of  the  nuts  as  they  grew 
on  these  trees. 

When  they  were  gathered,  there  was  a  fibrous 
substance  surrounding  the  shell  an  inch  or  two 
in  thickness — a  woody  fiber  torn  off  by  the 
shippers  to  cut  down  the  cost  of  freight  and 
cartage.  Around  this  excelsior-like  covering,  as 
the  nut  grew  on  the  tree,  there  was  a  skin-tight, 
waterproof  cover,  with  a  smooth  or  even  shiny 
surface. 

At  the  top  of  the  nut  as  it  would  stand  if  it 
floated  in  water,  are  three  well  defined  eyes. 

Since  these  coconut  palms  grow,  usually,  along 
the  water's  edge,  the  nuts  often  roll  into  a  brook, 
or  a  river,  or  the  ocean,  and  float  away. 

Once  detached  from  the  tree  and  started  on 
such  a  journey,  the  eyes  disclose  their  purpose. 
Two  of  them  begin  to  throw  out  a  system  of  roots, 
not  on  the  outside  of  the  coconut,  but  growing  at 
first  within  the  woody  fiber  between  the  shell  and 
the  outside  skin. 

[94] 


The  Coconut's  Three  Eyes 

As  this  coconut  falls  in  the  water,  one  of  the  eyes  shown 
at  the  top  throws  up  a  sail-like  leaf  while  the  other  two  begin  to 
throw  out  a  mass  of  roots  within  the  excelsior-like  covering,  but  inside 
of  the  waterproof  cover  of  the  nut,  which  for  the  purpose  of  illus- 
tration, has  been  removed.     When  the  sail  has  carried  the 
nut  to  a  new  environment,  the  roots  burst  forth  and 
the  sail  grows  into  a  taller  stalk,  which  finally 
becomes    the    trunk   of    the   new   palm. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

At  the  same  time  the  other  eye  pushes  out  sail- 
like leaves  extending  several  inches  above  the 
outer  casing. 

Then,  with  sails  set,  and  aided  by  the  current 
of  the  stream,  the  nut  starts  out  on  its  journey  to 
find  an  environment  of  its  own. 

Once  landed,  after  weeks,  perhaps,  of  travel, 
the  roots  which  have  been  growing  inside  force 
their  way  out  into  the  moist  soil  at  the  water's 
edge — the  sail  leaves  begin  to  grow  into  stalks, 
which  later  develop  into  the  trunk  of  the  tree, 
the  waves  start  to  build  new  ground  by  washing 
sand  around  it,  and  the  first  page  in  the  history 
of  a  new  palm  in  a  new  environment  is  written. 
***** 

The  hard  shell  surrounding  the  stored-up  milk 
in  the  coconut  is  there,  obviously,  as  a  protec- 
tion from  the  monkeys;  to  prevent  extermination 
through  their  liking  for  the  milk. 

And  that  excelsior  packing,  and  that  water- 
proof housing,  are  these  not  as  plainly  the 
palm's  attempt  to  provide  for  its  baby  tree  a  new 

environment? 

***** 

We  do  not  have  to  go  to  the  tropics  for 
evidences  like  these. 

There  is  probably  no  more  familiar  weed  in 
our  vacant  lots  than  the  common  dandelion. 

[96] 


ON  VARIATION 

Who  can  forget  its  feathery  seed  ball  waiting, 
when  ripe,  for  the  first  youngster,  or  the  first  draft 
of  air  to  blow  it  away  on  its  long  sail  through  the 
air  as  it  distributes  its  seeds — some  on  stones, 
perhaps,  and  some  on  plowed  ground — such  a 
multitude  of  seeds  that,  though  many  be  lost,  some 
will  find  themselves  throwing  roots  into  new  soil, 
rearing  their  heads  into  new  air — starting  life  in 
a  new  environment? 

***** 

Or  we  might  learn  a  lesson  from  one  of  the 
wild  chicories  which  provides  some  of  its  seeds 
with  wings  to  fly,  while  others  it  leaves  wingless. 
Those  seeds  without  wings  fall  at  the  feet  of  the 
parent  plant  as  if  to  keep  green  the  old  family 
home;  while  those  with  wings  fly  away  to  start  new 
families,  under  new  conditions,  where  latent  traits 
and  tendencies — latent  elements  of  weakness  or 
strength — may  cooperate  to  produce  a  better 
chicory. 

Or  from  that  joy  of  childhood,  the  squirting 
cucumber,  which,  when  ripe,  fires  its  seeds,  mixed 
up  in  its  milky  contents,  with  such  force  that  they 
are  sometimes  carried  a  distance  of  twelve  to 
fifteen  feet. 

Or  even  the  sweet  pea,  or  our  garden  pea,  which 
when  their  seeds  have  dried,  have  the  ability  to 
throw  them  some  distance  from  the  parent  plant. 

[97] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

In  Mexico,  there  is  the  familiar  jumping  bean 
tree,  which  calls  in  an  insect  to  aid  in  the  distribu- 
tion of  its  seeds. 

While  these  beans  are  still  green,  they  are 
visited  by  a  moth  which  lays  her  eggs  in  them. 
As  they  ripen,  the  grub  hatches  out  and  lives  upon 
the  food  stored  within. 

As  if  in  partnership  with  the  moth,  the  jumping 
bean  tree  has  provided  food  for  her  offspring,  so 
that  the  larva  has  plenty  to  eat  without  injuring 
the  seed  within  the  bean. 

And  the  grub,  as  it  hollows  out  the  bean  and 
jumps  about  within  it,  causes  it  to  turn  and  roll — 
rolls  it  into  a  new  environment — repays  its  family 
debt  to  the  tree  which  gave  it  food. 
*       *       *       *       * 

In  the  wooded  mountains  near  Santa  Rosa 
there  grows  a  pine  tree  which  has  worked  out  an 
ingenious  scheme  for  taking  advantage  of  occa- 
sional forest  fires  to  aid  it  in  its  reproduction. 

Most  other  trees  mature  their  nuts  or  seeds  and 
shed  them  every  season.  The  animals  may  eat  the 
fruit  and  carry  the  seeds  afar,  or  take  the  nuts  to 
new  environments,  or  the  seedlings  may  come  up 
at  the  foot  of  the  parent  tree — but  the  process  of 
seed  bearing  and  seed  shedding  usually  completes 
its  cycle  every  fall. 

The  pine  tree  referred  to,  however,  does  not 

[98] 


ON  VARIATION 

shed  its  seeds  in  this  way,  nor  is  there  any 
inducement  in  them  or  their  covering  to  tempt  an 
animal  to  carry  them  away. 

They  grow  in  clusters  about  the  trunk  and 
branches,  but  remain  attached  to  the  tree.  The 
cones  which  hold  them  do  not  even  open.  Some- 
times nine  or  ten  crops  of  these  seed  cones  may 
be  observed  clinging  to  a  parent  tree. 

But  whenever. the  woods  are  visited  by  a  forest 
fire,  the  cones  are  dried  out  by  the  heat,  and  the 
seeds,  released,  fall  to  the  ground  and  sprout. 

In  the  localities  in  which  these  trees  grow,  there 
would  be  little  chance  for  their  seeds  to  germinate, 
in  fact,  except  after  a  forest  fire  had  cleared  the 
ground. 

Against  the  competition  of  all  of  the  hardy 
underbrush  to  be  found  in  those  localities,  the 
mother  tree,  it  would  seem,  fears  that  her  seeds 
will  have  but  a  poor  chance. 

Yet  when  the  fires  have  cleared  the  ground  and 
killed  almost  every  other  living  thing,  these  seeds 
spring  up  almost  as  quickly  and  almost  as  thickly 
as  grass  on  a  lawn;  and,  competition  removed, 
they  grow  with  surprising  rapidity  into  the 
making  of  a  new  forest. 

It  has  been  observed  that  these  trees  grow 
usually  along  the  sides  of  deep  canyons  where  the 
destructiveness  of  the  fire  is  the  greatest — and  only 

[99] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

in  canyons  where  forest  fires  are  frequent — show- 
ing that  without  the  aid  of  the  fires,  the  tree  can 
not  perpetuate  itself. 

So  firmly  fixed  has  this  partnership  between 
the  fires  and  this  particular  pine  tree  become  that, 
its  seeds,  if  planted  under  other  conditions,  will 
not  germinate. 

Taken  from  the  tree,  it  is  impossible  to  get 
them  to  grow  even  with  the  greatest  care  in  good 
soil;  but  experiment  has  shown  that,  if  placed  for 
a  few  hours  in  boiling  water,  they  will  readily 
sprout  even  in  poor  soil. 

Thus,  as  if  through  a  strange  alliance,  the 
forest  fires  clear  the  ground,  scatter  the  cones  and 
prepare  the  seed  of  this  pine  tree  for  germination; 
and  the  pine  tree,  in  turn,  rebuilds  the  forest 
which  the  fires  destroyed. 

***** 

The  devil's  claw,  a  tropical  relative  of  our 
unicorn  plant,  has  developed  the  power  to  bite 
and  to  hold  on  with  almost  bulldog  grip,  in  its 
scheme  of  providing  new  environments  for  its 
young. 

This  plant,  growing  low  on  the  ground  among 
other  tropical  vegetation  where  the  distribution  of 
seed  becomes  a  problem,  grows  a  seed  pod  of 
seven  inches  or  more  in  length. 

Its  seed  pod,  while  maturing,  is  encased  in  a 

[100] 


The  Devils  Claw— I 

As   it  grows  in  the  tropics,  the  need  pod  of  the 

devil's  claw,  or  martynia,  shown  above,  resembles  a  large 

gourd    in    color    and    in    texture    of    its    covering.       The    succeeding 

prints    show   how    it    transforms    itself    to    bite   and    hold 

on    to    passing    animals    with    a    bull    dog    grip. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

pulpy  covering  with  a  thick  green  skin,  and  its 
bulb  and  hook  suggest  some  kind  of  gourd. 

When  the  seeds  within  are  mature,  the  outside 
covering  splits  and  peels  away,  disclosing  a  seed 
nest  which  is  armored  with  spines  more  thickly 
than  a  prickly  pear.  That  which,  during  its  early 
stages,  formed  the  hook,  now  spreads  into  two 
branches  with  pointed  ends  sharper  than  pins, 
almost  as  sharp  as  needles. 

Between  these  four-inch  hooks,  where  they  join 
the  spiny  bulb  behind  them,  there  appears  a  hole 
from  which  the  seeds,  if  loosened  from  their 
former  pulpy  support,  may,  by  pounding  and 
thumping,  find  their  way  out  into  the  world. 

As  the  seed  pod  lies  on  the  ground,  its  sharp 
hooks  coiled  in  exactly  the  right  position,  it  awaits 
a  passing  animal.  This  spring  trap  may  remain 
set  for  many  months,  but  once  an  animal,  big  or 
small,  steps  between  those  fish-hook  points,  their 
mission  is  accomplished.  The  first  slight  kick  or 
struggle  to  get  away  imbeds  them  deeply,  and  at 
each  succeeding  struggle  the  hooks  bite  in,  and  in, 
and  in,  until  finally  the  animal,  in  its  efforts  for 
release,  pulls  the  seed  pod  from  the  plant  and 
starts  to  run. 

Swinging  to  a  leg  or  tail,  suspended  by  the  two 
sharp  points  of  its  prongs,  the  spiny  housing  of 
the  seed  pod  comes  now  into  play.    At  each  bound 

[102] 


The  Devil's  Claw— 11 

In  this  print  it  will  be  seen  that  the  gourd-like 

covering   is   being  shed,  and  that  what  at  first  seemed  to 

be    but   a   single   stem    has   separated    into    two    wiry   prongs.      This 

seed  pod  is  attached  to   the  plant  by  a  stem   which  joins 

it   at    the    bottom    of    the   picture   shown    above. 


The  Devil's  Claw— 111 

Having  completely  shed  its  gourd-like  covering,  and  with 

its  jaws  set  for  a  passing  animal,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  pod 

itself  is  covered  with  prickly  spines.     When  the  fish-hook  points  of 

the  prongs  bite  into  the  leg  of  an  animal,  the  whole  contrivance  becomes 

balanced  from  that  point,  and  at  each  jolt  and  jounce  the  heavier  body 

of  the  pod  pounds  down  upon  the  leg,  its  spines  causing  great 

pain.     There  is  an  opening  between  the  two  prongs  at  the 

upper  end  of  the  pod  itself  from  which   the  seeds 

come  out  at  every  bounce.      When  these  are 

scattered  over  a  mile  or   two   of  new 

environment,  the  pod  falls  apart. 


ON  VARIATION 

or  jump,  the  pod  flops  up  and  down,  and  its  prickly 

points,  adding  to  the  pain  of  the  ever-pinching 

hooks,  are  sure  to  keep  the  animal  in  motion.    As 

the  frightened  beast  makes  haste  to  get  away  from 

an  enemy  which  it  cannot  see,  the  seeds  within  the 

pod  begin  to  loosen  and  fall  out  on  the  ground. 

When  the  last  seed  has  left  its  shelter,  the  trap 

begins  to  fall  apart — its  object  accomplished — its 

seeds  scattered  throughout  a  mile  or  more  of  new 

environment. 

*       *       *       *       * 

The  sailor  is  awed  by  the  mountains,  and  the 
mountaineer  is  awed  by  the  sea. 

And  we,  too,  are  more  apt  to  wonder  at  the 
jumping  beans  of  Mexico  and  at  the  devil's  claw  of 
the  equator  than  at  the  cherry  tree  in  our  own 
back  yard — which  outdoes  both  of  these  by  form- 
ing a  double  partnership. 

Just  as  the  geranium  bids  for  the  bees,  so  the 
cherry  blossom,  with  its  delicate  pink  and  its  store 
of  honey  advertises  for  butterflies  and  bees  to 
bring  the  pollen  from  a  neighboring  tree. 

And  this  partnership  concluded,  the  accounts 
balanced  and  the  books  closed,  it  then  seeks  new 
partners  in  the  birds. 

That  delicious  meat  around  the  seed,  that  shiny 
skin  of  red,  and  that  odor  of  the  cherry  as  it  ripens 
— these  are  a  part  of  the  advertisement  to   the 

[105] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

birds  or  animals — a  lure  to  get  them  to  eat  the 
fruit  and  carry  the  seed  as  far  as  they  may  to 
another— a  new — environment. 

Shall  we  wonder  at  the  jumping  bean  and  the 
devil's  claw  when  our  own  cherry  tree  is  getting 
the  bees  to  give  its  offspring  new  heredities  and 
the  birds  to  surround  these  heredities  with  new 

environments  in  which  to  grow? 

***** 

Wherever  we  look  we  see  a  new  display  of 
ingenuity — all  for  the  sake  of  variation — variation 
which  may  mean  retrogression  as  well  as  advance- 
ment— but  such  infinite  variation  that,  surely, 
there  can  be  found  one  out  of  a  thousand,  or  one 
out  of  ten  thousand,  or  one  out  of  a  million  better 
than  those  that  went  before. 

Every  flower  that  delights  our  eye,  and  every 
fruit  which  pleases  our  palate,  and  every  plant 
which  yields  us  a  useful  substance,  is  as  delightful 
as  it  is,  or  as  pleasing  or  as  useful  as  it  is,  simply 
because  of  the  improvement  which  has  been  made 
possible  through  variation. 


— No  two  living  things 
are    exactly    alike. 


The  Rivalry  of  Plants 
to  Please  Us 

On  the  Forward  March 
of  Adaptation 


WE  cut  down  our  alfalfa  four  or  five 
times  a  season,"  says  some  one,  "why 
doesn't  it  grow  spines  to  protect  itself? 
We  destroy  our  lettuce  before  it  goes  to  seed; 
why  doesn't  it  develop  a  protective  bitterness  like 
the  sagebrush? 

"We  rob  our  apple  trees  of  all  their  fruit  the 
moment  they  are  ripe;  why  do  they  not  become 
poisonous  like  the  desert  euphorbias?" 
***** 

"Let  us  go  back  to  the  cactus,"  says  Mr.  Bur- 
bank,  "and  read  the  answer. 

"Grim  and  threatening  though  the  cactus  seems, 
it  is  not  without  its  softer  side;  in  the  springtime 
its  blossoms,  a  multitude  of  them,  push  their  way 
through  the  spiny  armor — and  rival  the  rose  in 
formation,  compete  with  the  orchid  in  the  delicacy 
of  their  hues. 

[Volume  I — Chapter  IV] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

"No  favorite  garden  flower  can  outdo  this 
ungainly  monster  of  the  desert,  when  in  hloom, 
in  the  seductiveness  of  its  advertisement  to  the 
bee. 

"When  summer  comes,  and  the  bee  has  paid, 
by  the  service  it  has  rendered,  for  the  honey  it  has 
taken,  the  nest  of  fertile  eggs  beneath  each  cactus 
blossom  begins  to  grow  into  a  luscious  fruit. 

"In  this  cactus  fruit  there  is  an  acid  sweetness 
as  tempting  as  that  of  the  raspberry,  the  straw- 
berry or  the  pineapple.  Its  outward  covering  has 
a  brilliant  beauty  no  less  attractive  than  that  of 
the  cherry,  or  the  grape. 

"Thus,  in  the  springtime,  the  cactus,  like  the 
cherry,  advertises  to  the  friendly  bees  to  bring 
its  offspring  new  heredities,  and,  in  the  fall,  it 
advertises  to  the  friendly  birds  to  carry  off  its 
seed  and  plant  it  where  its  young  may  have  the 
advantage  of  new  environments. 

"In  its  spiny  armor  we  read  the  plant's  response 
to  the  enemies  in  its  environment. 

"In  its  brilliant  flowers  and  tempting  fruit  we 
read  its  receptiveness  to  the  friendship  of  the  birds 
and  bees. 

"Those  spines  and  those  flowers  and  fruits  tell 
us  that  while  its  ancestors  were  fighting  a  common 
foe,  they  still  found  time  to  build  up  lasting 
partnerships. 

[108] 


ON  ADAPTATION 

"And  so,  with  every  plant  that  grows,  we  shall 
see  these  same  tendencies — instincts  shall  we  call 
them? — to  ward  off  the  enemy  and  make  use  of 

the  friend." 

***** 

"So  long  as  plants  grow  wild,  the  frosts,  the 
winds,  the  hail  storms,  the  droughts  and  the 
animals  are  principal  among  the  enemies  with 
which  they  have  to  reckon. 

"So  long  as  they  grow  in  the  woods,  or  on  the 
mountains,  or  in  the  deserts,  the  bees  and  the  birds 
and  the  butterflies — the  warmth  of  the  sun  and 
moisture  of  the  soil — these  are  among  the  friendly 
factors  in  their  lives. 

"But  when  we  take  plants  under  cultivation,  we 
upset  their  whole  environment. 

"We  build  fences  around  our  blackberries  so 
that  they  need  no  thorns.  We  save  the  seeds  of  our 
radishes,  and  the  bulbs  of  our  lilies,  and  through 
human  organization  distribute  them  and  plant 
them  wherever  they  will  grow.  We  cut  slips  from 
our  apple  trees  and  ship  them  from  county  to 
county,  and  state  to  state,  and  nation  to  nation,  and 
zone  to  zone.  We  select,  and  improve,  and  plow, 
and  harrow  the  ground  for  our  plants;  we  water 
them  when  they  are  dry;  we  surround  them  with 
shade  trees  if  they  need  shade,  we  cut  down  the 
shade  trees  if  they  prefer  the  sun;  we  plant  their 

[109] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

baby  seedlings  under  glass,  and  give  them  every 
favoring  condition  in  which  to  mature;  we  remove 
what  for  ages  have  been  the  chief  problems  of 
their  lives — we  take  over  their  two  prime  burdens, 
the  burdens  of  self  defense  and  reproduction. 

"The  frosts,  and  the  winds,  and  the  hail  storms, 
and  the  droughts,  and  the  animals  are  no  longer 
the  chief  enemies  of  plants;  for  man,  when  he 
comes  into  their  environment,  is  more  dreadful 
than  all  of  these  combined — if  he  chooses  to 
destroy. 

"And  the  bees  and  the  birds  and  the  butterflies, 
and  the  warmth  of  the  sun,  and  the  moisture  in  the 
soil,  fade  into  insignificance  as  friendly  influences 
when  compared  with  that  of  man— if  it  pleases 
him  to  be  a  friend. 

"So  the  geranium  still  advertises  to  the  bees, 
and  the  cherry  tree  to  the  butterflies  and  birds,  as 
of  old. 

"But  their  main  advertisement,  now,  is  an 
advertisement  to  us;  their  strongest  effort,  now 
that  we  have  become  predominant  in  their  lives,  is 
to  lure  us  with  their  blossoms  and  their  fruit — to 
enchant  us  with  their  odors,  and  colors,  and 
lusciousness,  as  they  formerly  enchanted  only 
the  bees — to  win  and  hold  our  appreciation  and 
affection,  and  merit  our  kindly  attention  and 
care." 

[110] 


ON  ADAPTATION 

Our  alfalfa,  lettuce  and  apples,  like  our  horses, 
our  cows,  our  dogs,  have  found  in  man  a  friend 
stronger  than  the  strongest  of  their  enemies. 

So  their  welfare  now  is  measured  by  the 
usefulness  of  the  service  they  can  render  in  repay- 
ment for  man's  care. 

***** 

"There  is  a  common  snowball  in  my  yard," 
continued  Mr.  Burbank,  "which  advertises  alone 
to  me. 

"In  the  woods  around  there  are  other  snowballs 
of  the  same  family — wild  snowballs — into  whose 
life  history  man,  as  a  part  of  environment,  has 
never  come. 

"The  wild  snowball,  with  only  a  fringe  of 
blossoms,  and  a  mass  of  egg  nests  and  pollen  inside 
the  fringe,  is  still  advertising  to  the  bee. 

"But  the  snowball  in  my  yard  has  responded 
to  my  care,  and  to  the  care  of  those  who  went 
before  me,  till  its  stamens  and  pistils,  as  if  seeing 
their  needlessness,  have  turned  to  blossoms — till 
its  eggs  have  grown  sterile,  even  should  an  insect 
come. 

"And  so,  with  every  snowball  which  grows  in 
anybody's  yard — cultivation  has  relieved  it  of  the 
need  for  reproduction,  and  what  was  once  but  a 
fringe  of  flowers  has  been  transformed  into  a 
solid  mass  of  blossoms. 

[Ill] 


The  Snowball,  Tame  and  Wild 

The    upper    snowball    is    the    one    which    grew    in    Mr. 
Burbank's  yard,  or  such  as  commonly  grows  under  cultivation. 
The  snowball  below  is  a  wild  one  such  as  grows  in  the  woods.     The 
wild   snowball,    it    will    be    seen,    uses    the   flowers    to    attract 
messengers  of  pollenation  to  the  reproductive  mechanism 
which    the   flowers   encircle.     The   upper  snowball, 
however,    has    lost    its    power    of    reproduc- 
tion   by    seed    and    advertises    to    us, 
instead,    to   perpetuate    its    race. 


ON  ADAPTATION 

"Just  as  a  mother  cat  can  make  a  dumb  appeal 
for  the  protection  or  the  sustenance  of  her  kittens, 
an  appeal  no  human  being  can  misunderstand, 
just  as  strongly  and  just  as  clearly  do  the 
snowballs,  by  the  beauty  and  helplessness  of  their 
self-sterilized  flowers,  appeal  to  us  to  see  to  their 
protection   and   effect   the   perpetuation   of   their 

kind." 

***** 

Many  violets,  as  they  grow  wild  in  the  woods, 
bear  two  kinds  of  blossoms. 

One  is  the  flower,  rich  in  color  and  in  scent, 
which  is  borne  at  the  top  of  the  plant. 

The  other,  an  egg  nest  without  odor,  or  beauty, 
or  other  advertisement — which  is  borne  near  the 
base  of  the  plant. 

The  flower  at  the  top,  like  the  flower  of  a 
geranium,  advertises  to  the  insects  to  bring  pollen 
from  other  plants. 

The  colorless  flower  at  the  bottom  needs  no 
insect  to  bring  it  pollen — it  pollenates  itself  and 
produces  fertile  eggs  with  only  a  single  strain  of 
heredity. 

Some  of  these  violets  with  upper  and  lower 
blossoms,  particularly  those  which  grow  in  the 
shade,  never  open  their  upper  flowers — as  if 
knowing  that  the  friendly  insects  so  prefer  the  sun 
that  no  attempt  at  advertisement  could  lure  them 

[113] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

to  the  shade.  These  violets  reproduce  themselves 
wholly  by  the  self-fertilization  which  goes  on 
within  the  colorless  flower  below. 

And  there  are  those  violets,  of  this  same  kind, 
blooming  in  the  sunlight,  which  open  their  upper 
flowers,  so  that,  if  visited  by  insects,  the  seed 
within  matures;  but,  as  if  in  doubt  of  the  effective- 
ness of  their  advertisement,  the  lower  blossoms 
continue  to  produce  their  inbred  seed. 

And  there  are  still  other  violets  which,  as  if 
assured  of  the  friendship  of  the  insects,  have 
ceased  to  make  the  colorless  blossoms  below,  and 
produce  their  entire  output  of  seed  at  the  base  of 
the  brilliant  upper  flower. 

Here,  in  these  three  kinds  of  violets,  is  written 
the  story  of  a  plant's  struggle  with  wild  environ- 
ment in  which  man  has  not  yet  become  a  factor; 
the  story  of  an  unequal  struggle  in  which  the 
stages  of  failure,  partial  victory,  and  complete 
triumph  are  clearly  laid  before  us. 
***** 

Into  the  life  of  the  violet,  some  few  hundred 
years  ago,  there  came  the  new  element  of  environ- 
ment— man. 

A  single  violet  plant  which  was  taken  from  its 
catch-as-catch-can  existence,  let  us  say,  found 
itself  in  fine-combed  soil  in  the  shade  of  some 
one's  dooryard. 

[114] 


•3  ?  *  3.  ■*  3- ~  §  ^r 


•&5    «sg 

J?    "~.    B    ft    , 


5-  s?  a  2  K  3 


w 


a  3 


.,  3-rt, 
3  a  3  SrSr 


©* 

OS 


a 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

If  it  rained  too  much,  drainage  took  up  the 
excess.  When  the  rains  did  not  come,  the  soil 
was  sprinkled. 

Under  cultivation,  and  kindly  care,  the  discour- 
agements of  its  life  grew  less  and  less,  and  the 
encouragements  to  thrive  grew  more  and  more. 

Soon  this  violet,  as  if  assured  of  reproduction, 
abandoned  the  blossoms  at  its  base,  and  threw  its 
energies  into  making  bigger  and  brighter  and 
more  beautiful  blossoms  at  its  top.  Where  it  had 
half-heartedly  advertised  to  the  bees  of  old,  it  now- 
concentrated  its  efforts  to  win  the  approval  of  the 
new-found  friend  whose  dooryard  brought  it 
opportunity. 

And  this  is  the  life  story  of  that  kind  of  violet 
which  we  now  call  the  pansy. 

On  the  one  hand,  in  the  woods,  we  see  its  wild 
kin-folk  still  struggling  against  unequal  odds;  on 
the  other  we  see  its  own  large,  beautiful  pansy 
petals,  and  the  increased  brilliancy  of  its  hues; 
each  a  response  to  environment. 

Truly,  in  the  pretty  face  of  the  pansy,  we  may 
read  the  vivid  story  of  man's  importance   as  a 

friendly  element  in  the  lives  of  plants. 

***** 

Where  do  the  flowers  get  their  colors? 
"From  the  bees,"  said  Mr.  Burbank.  "And  from 
us." 

[116] 


The  Violet's  Wonderful  Advertisement 

With    both    wondrous    color    and    charming    scent,   some 

violets  advertise  to  the  insects  which,  because  of  the  flower's 

preference  for  moist  shady  places,  rarely  come.    Wild,  in  the  woods,  are 

to  be  found  violets  which  bear  only  colorless  flowers  as  shown 

in  the  preceding  print,  as  well  as  some  which  bear  both 

kinds  of  flowers,  and  still  others  which,  as  if  having 

succeeded     in    attracting     the     insects,     bear 

only  the  delicate  blossoms  shown  here. 


A  Response  to  Kindly  Care 

Taken   from    its    wild    environment   and   freed    from    its 
struggle,   the    violet   became   a   pansy.      Truly,   in   the   pretty   face   of 
the  pansy,  we  may  read  the  vivid  story  of  man's  impor- 
tance as  a  friendly  element  in  the  lives  of  plants. 


ON  ADAPTATION 

On  the  experiment  farm  at  Santa  Rosa,  there 
grow  two  ordinary  looking  pear  trees  which 
amplify  the  thought. 

One  of  these  trees  produces  large,  juicy,  soft, 
aromatic,  luscious,  easily  digested  pears — a  delight 
to  the  eye  and  to  the  palate. 

The  other  produces  small,  hard,  bitter,  indi- 
gestible fruit,  the  very  opposite  in  every  way  of 
our  idea  of  what  a  pear  should  be. 

Looking  at  these  trees  side  by  side,  it  would  be 
difficult  to  realize  that  their  fruit  could  be  so  differ- 
ent. Both  show  the  unmistakable  characteristics 
of  the  pear  tree — the  pear  tree  shape,  the  pear  tree 
branches,  the  pear  tree  leaves,  the  pear  tree  blos- 
soms. In  their  fruit  alone  do  they  differ. 
***** 

Since  these  two  pear  trees  illustrate  an  impor- 
tant point,  let  us  begin  at  the  beginning: 

The  pear,  it  seems,  was  first  discovered  in 
eastern  Europe  or  western  Asia.  It  was  there,  in 
Eurasia,  some  two  thousand  years  ago,  that  man 
first  realized  that  this  fruit  was  good  to  eat. 

Coming  to  us,  thus,  out  of  obscurity,  the  pear, 
during  these  twenty  centuries,  has  spread  to  the 
east,  and  to  the  west,  till  it  has  completely  encircled 
the  globe — a  slow  process,  but  one  which  takes 
place  in  every  desirable  fruit  which  is  discovered 
or  produced. 

[119] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

As  Europe  became  more  and  more  settled,  the 
pear  kept  pace  with  the  invaders.  It  followed  them 
to  the  British  Isles,  it  followed  them  across  the 
Atlantic  to  America.  It  followed  them  westward 
across  this  continent  as  the  pioneers  pushed  their 
way  to  the  Pacific. 

In  the  same  way  it  worked  its  eastward  journey 
through  Siberia,  and  China,  and  Japan  —  more 
slowly,  perhaps,  than  under  the  influence  of 
European  and  American  hurry  and  enterprise,  but 
just  as  constantly,  and  just  as  surely — till  now,  in 
friendly  climates,  it  is  a  world-wide  fruit. 
***** 

Both  of  the  pear  trees  described  here,  as  in  fact 
all  of  the  pear  trees  which  we  know  today,  seem  to 
have  come  from  those  common  parents  in  eastern 
Europe  or  western  Asia. 

The  one  in  Mr.  Burbank's  yard  which  bears  the 
luscious  fruit  is  the  Bartlett  pear — an  excellent 
though  common  variety  in  the  United  States. 

The  other,  with  its  bitter,  indigestible  fruit,  is 
one  which  was  imported  from  Japan. 
***** 

The  lesson  which  these  two  pear  trees  teach  is 
that  fruits,  like  flowers,  in  their  rivalry  to  please 
us,  adapt  themselves  to  the  tastes,  desires,  and 
ideals  of  the  human  neighbors  among  whom  they 
grow. 

[1201 


A  Chinese  Lily 

The  unusual  shape  of  this  flower,  beautiful  though  it  is, 

shows  how  even  flowers  respond  to  the  ideals  of  those  whom 

they  grow   to   please.      The    very   lines   of   this    lily   suggest   dragons 

and  those  other   weird  shapes   which   are  pleasing  to   the  eye 

of    the    Oriental.      This    transformation    in    flowers    was 

worked  in  the  same  way  that  the  transformation  of 

the  pear,  described  here,  was  brought  about. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

Here,  in  America,  we  like  fruits  that  are  soft, 
large,  sweet,  luscious,  juicy,  aromatic,  easy  to 
digest  when  eaten  raw.    Our  pears  grow  that  way. 

In  Japan  and  China  they  like  fruits  which  are 
hard,  small,  bitter,  dry,  acid — suitable  only  for 
pickling,  preserving,  or  cooking.  The  Chinese  and 
Japanese  pear  trees  bear  that  kind  of  fruit. 

Neither  the  Japanese  pear,  nor  our  American 
type,  is  like  the  original  wild  parent  which  was 
first  discovered  near  the  middle  of  Russia. 

Each   has   changed  —  one   toward   one   set   of 
ideals — and  the  other  toward  another  set.     . 
***** 

If  we  could  lay  bare  before  us  the  whole  history 
of  the  pear  tree — if  we  could  picture  in  our  minds 
its  stages  of  progress  beginning  back  in  the  times, 
say,  when  instead  of  a  fruit  it  bore  only  a  seed 
pod  like  the  geranium's — we  should  see  a  record 
of  endless  change,  constant  adaptation. 

We  should  see  that  the  soil,  and  the  moisture, 
and  the  sunshine,  and  the  air,  throughout  the  ages, 
have  played  their  parts  in  working  the  pear  tree 
forward. 

We  should  see  that  other  plants,  crowding  it 
for  room,  or  sapping  the  moisture  from  its  feet, 
or  adding  richness  to  the  soil  by  their  decaying 
leaves  and  limbs,  have  done  their  share  in  hasten- 
ing its  improvement. 

[122] 


Less  Rind,  More  Meat 

This    color   photograph   print   shows   a   good 

comparison   of   the   orange   as    it  formerly   grew   and  as 

it  grows   today,  since   the  orange  has   been   transformed  to  meet  our 

ideals.    Simply   by  selecting  the  kinds   which  have   been 

propagated  this  improvement  has  been  worked. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

We  should  see  that  the  bees  and  butterflies  and 
birds,  with  their  help,  and  the  caterpillars,  locusts 
and  deer  in  their  efforts  to  destroy,  have  all  served 
to  aid  the  onward  march. 

We  should  see  all  the  while  a  steady  change  for 
the  better — sturdier  pear  trees,  brighter  blossoms, 
more  seed,  better  fruit. 

We  should  see  that,  with  the  aid  of  the  elements, 
the  pear  tree  adapted  itself  to  exist,  hardened 
itself  to  withstand  many  soils  and  many  weathers. 

We  should  see  that,  with  the  unintended  aid  of 
its  plant  and  animal  enemies,  it  gained  strength 
through  overcoming  them. 

We  should  see  that,  through  the  bees,  it  was 
helped  into  variation  by  mixing  up  heredities; 
and,  by  the  birds,  it  was  helped  into  still  further 
variation  by  mixing  up  environments. 

Then,  overshadowing  all  of  these  influences, 
there  came  into  its  life  new  influences  of  man — 
man  savage  and  civilized,  Oriental  and  Occidental 
— man  with  a  liking  for  pears. 

Here  in  America,  we  who  have  grown  pears 
have  saved  those  which  were  the  sweetest,  the 
largest,  the  juiciest,  the  most  luscious — because 
those  were  the  ones  we  liked  best. 

When  we  have  bought  pear  trees  to  plant  in  our 
yards,  we  have  chosen  those  which  would  give  us 
the  kind  of  fruit  we  prefer. 

[124] 


ON  ADAPTATION 

The  pear  trees  which  have  pleased  us  have 
received  our  care  and  cultivation — and  we  have 
multiplied  them.  The  pear  trees  which  have  failed 
to  produce  fruit  up  to  our  ideals  we  have  neglected 
and  allowed  to  die — so  that  they  have  practically 
disappeared  from  our  orchards. 

The  Orientals,  their  tastes  and  likes  running  in 
opposite  directions  from  ours,  have  discouraged 
pear  trees  which  bore  the  kind  of  fruit  we  prefer, 
and  have  selected,  and  saved,  and  fostered,  and 
propagated  those  which  gave  them  the  hard,  bitter 
fruit  of  their  ideals. 

And  so  the  struggle  for  adaptation  set  in 
motion  by  the  soil,  the  warmth,  the  cold,  the 
moisture,  and  the  winds,  was  supplemented  by  the 
bees,  and  then  by  the  birds,  until  now  we  can 
read,  in  the  result,  our  own  influence  and  that  of 

the  Japanese. 

***** 

There  are  differences  between  our  dress  and 
the  dress  of  the  Orientals;  between  our  religions 
and  the  religions  of  the  Orientals;  between  our 
ambitions  and  the  Oriental  ambitions;  between 
our  architecture  and  the  architecture  of  the  Orient 
— all  reflecting  the  national  or  racial  differences 
between  the  ideals  of  the  two  peoples. 

And  just  as  surely  as  the  ideals  of  a  people 
influence  the   architecture  with  which   they  sur- 

[125] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

round  themselves,  just  as  surely  as  they  change 
ambitions,  mold  religions,  create  dress  styles, 
just  so  surely  do  they  influence  and  change  the 
characteristics  of  the  plants  in  whose  environment 

they  live. 

***** 

"When  I  say  that  man  is  the  biggest  element 
in  the  environment  of  plants,"  said  Mr.  Burbank, 
"I  do  not  mean  those  few  men  who  have  devoted 
their  lives  to  the  improvement  of  plants.  I  do  not 
mean  the  botanist,  the  horticulturist,  the  florist, 
the  nurseryman,  the  agricultural  experimentalist. 
I  mean  man  in  the  mass — man  busy  with  his  dry 
goods  store,  or  his  steel  company,  occupied  with 
his  law,  or  his  medicine,  tired  out  from  his  daily 
blacksmithing,  or  his  carpentering.  I  mean  just 
man,  the  neighbor  of  plants,  whether  he  be  their 
friend  or  their  enemy — whoever  and  whatever  he 

is." 

***** 

It  was  the  savage  Indian  who  gave  us,  here  in 
America,  the  most  important  crop  we  have. 

It  was  the  Indian  who  found  a  wild  grass 
covering  the  plains  and  developed  it  into  corn. 

Or,  to  turn  it  the  other  way  around,  it  was  the 
desire  of  the  Indian  for  a  food  plant  like  this  that 
led  the  teosinte  grass,  by  gradual  adaptation,  to 
produce  Indian  corn  or  maize. 

[126] 


Our  Corn  and  Its  Tiny  Parent 

In   the   direct  color  photograph  print  shown  here   a  typical 

ear  of  "dent"  corn  is  placed  for  comparison  beside  the  tiny  teosinte 

ear  which    the  American  Indians   discovered   and   improved. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

On  Mr.  Burbank's  experiment  farm  there 
grows,  today,  this  same  teosinte  grass  which  the 
Indians  found. 

It  bears  tiny  ears  with  two  rows  of  corn-like 
kernels,  on  a  cob  the  thickness  of  a  lead  pencil, 
and  two  and  a  half  to  four  inches  long — slightly 
less  in  length  and  diameter  than  an  average  head 
of  wheat. 

From  its  earlier  stage  of  pod  corn,  in  which 
each  kernel  grew  in  a  separate  husk  like  wheat, 
teosinte  represented,  no  doubt,  a  hard  fought 
survival  and  adaptation  like  that  of  the  flowering 
violet. 

And  when  the  Indians  came  into  its  environ- 
ment it  responded  to  their  influence  as  the  pansy 
responded  to  care  and  cultivation  in  its  new 
dooryard  home. 

"Where  teosinte  had  formerly  relied  upon  the 
frosts  to  loosen  up  the  ground  for  its  seed,  it  found 
in  the  Indians  a  friend  who  crudely  but  effectively 
scratched  the  soil  and  doubled  the  chance  for  its 
baby  plant  to  grow. 

Where  it  had  been  choked  by  plant  enemies, 
and  starved  for  air  and  sunlight  by  weeds,  it  found 
in  the  Indians  a  friend  who  cut  down  and  kept  off 
its  competitors. 

Where  it  had  been  often  destroyed  by  the 
animals  before  its  maturity,  it  found  the  selfish 

[128] 


Some  Other  Forms  of  Corn 

In    the    direct    color    photograph    print    shown    here    the 

central  ear  and  the  ear  at  the  right  are  "pod"  corn,  in  which 

each  kernel  is  encased  in  a  separate  sheath.      The  ear  at  the  left  is 

another   form    of    teosinte    with    larger    kernels    than    those    in 

the    preceding    print;    from    this    latter    the    process    by 

which  the  kernels  crowded  each  other  until  the  cob 

increased  in  size  may   be  readily   imagined. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

protection  of  the  savages  as  grateful  as  though  it 
had  been  inspired  by  altruism. 

Planted  in  patches,  instead  of  straggling  here 
and  there  as  best  it  could  before,  the  teosinte 
grass  found  its  reproduction  problem  made  easier 
through  the  multitude  of  pollen  grains  now  float- 
ing through  the  air. 

And  so,  by  slow  degrees,  it  responded  to  its 
new  environment  by  bearing  more  and  bigger 
seed. 

As  the  seed  kernels  increased  in  numbers  and 
in  size,  the  cob  that  bore  them  grew  in  length. 

From  two,  the  rows  of  kernels  increased  to 
four,  to  six,  to  eight,  to  fourteen. 

Here  again  the  selfish  motives  of  the  savages 
served  to  help  the  plant  in  its  adaptation — for  only 
the  largest  ears  and  those  with  the  best  kernels 
were  saved  for  seed. 

So,   under  cultivation,   the  wild  grass   almost 
disappeared,  and  in  its  place  there  came,  through 
adaptation,  the  transformed  Indian  corn. 
***** 

"There  were  two  wealthy  men  in  England," 
said  Mr.  Burbank,  "who  took  up  the  daffodil  and 
the  narcissus,  growing  endless  quantities  of  seed- 
lings just  for  amusement. 

"Both  of  these  men,  so  it  happened,  were 
bankers.     One  was  a  rather  large,  coarse,  strong, 

[130] 


ON  ADAPTATION 

dominating  type  of  man — not  a  repulsive  man  by 
any  means,  but  lacking,  a  little,  in  refinement  and 
the  more  delicate  sensibilities. 

"The  other  banker  was  a  highly  sensitive, 
nervous,  shrinking  man  with  a  great  eye  for  detail, 
a  true  appreciation  of  values,  a  man  who  looked 
beneath  the  surface  of  things  and  saw  beauty  in 
hidden  truths,  a  man  who  thought  much  and  said 
little. 

"These  men  were  great  rivals  in  their  daffodil- 
and  narcissus-growing  pastime,  and  each  of  them 
succeeded  in  producing  some  wonderful  variations 
and  adaptations  in  their  plants. 

"When  these  bankers  died,  their  daffodil  and 
narcissus  bulbs  were  offered  for  sale  and  fell  into 
the  hands  of  a  friend  of  mine,  Peter  Barr,  a  great 
bulb  expert  of  England. 

"Peter  Barr  told  me  that  though  the  bulbs 
bought  from  those  two  estates  were  mixed  and 
planted  indiscriminately  on  his  proving  grounds, 
he  could  go  through  a  field  of  those  daffodils  and 
narcissuses  and,  simply  by  the  blossoms,  tell  which 
had  come  from  one  estate  and  which  from  the 
other. 

"The  flowers  that  came  from  the  bulbs  that 
represented  the  work  of  the  first  banker  were 
large,  coarse,  brightly  colored,  virile,  strong 
flowers — with  a  beauty  that  called  to  the  passer-by 

[131] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

as  if  out  loud,  and  a  self  defiant  attitude  as  if 
bespeaking  an  ample  ability  to  take  care  of 
themselves. 

"And  the  flowers  which  came  from  the  bulbs 
produced  by  the  other  banker  were  charmingly 
delicate — not  hardy,  but  rather  shrinkingly  artis- 
tic— not  loud  in   their  color  schemes,  but  softly 

alluring  with  their  subdued  hues." 

***** 

It  costs  money  to  ship  oranges,  so  the  more  the 
meat  and  the  less  the  rind,  the  less  we  waste  in 
transportation  charges. 

A  comparison  of  the  wild  orange  with  the 
cultivated  fruit  of  our  orange  groves  shows  how 
this    fruit    has    adapted    itself    to    our    ideas    of 

economy. 

***** 

Lettuce  in  the  head  makes  a  more  appetizing 
salad  than  lettuce  in  large,  sprawling  leaves. 

A  comparison   between   wild  lettuce   and   the 
head  lettuce  on  our  green  grocer's  stand  shows 
plant  adaptation  to  our  salad  demands. 
***** 

And  so  with  celery,  and  artichokes — and  every 
plant  that  is  grown  for  the  market — wild,  its  adap- 
tations are  toward  meeting  wild  environments; 
cultivated,  its  adaptations  are  toward  fitting  itself 
into  our  routine  of  life. 

[132] 


Wild  Lettuce 

A  comparison  between  this  and  the  large  leaved,  compact, 

salad  plant  of  our  gardens  shows   the  wonders  of  adaptation 

which  cultivation  works.    This  wild  lettuce  is  known  in  some  places  as 

the  "compass  plant"  because  of  the  fact  that  its  leaves,  instead  of 

fanning  out  in  all  directions  from  the  stalk,  point  always 

north  and  south — an  adaptation,  no  doubt,  to  protect 

the  plant  from  the  heat  of  the  mid-day  sun. 


Wild  Celery 


A    comparison   between   this   plant  and   the   appetizing  product 

which  is  found  in  our  markets  shows  how  we  have  taught  the  plant 

to  give  us  straight,  smooth,  tender  stalks,  instead  of  the  short, 

woody  stalk,   with  long  branches  above   it,  shown  here. 


ON  ADAPTATION 

We  have  seen  the  price  which  variation  costs; 
now  we  begin  to  see  the  value  of  it.  Among 
those  violets,  environment — the  environment  of 
the  present  combining  with  heredity  which  is  the 
recorded  environment  of  all  the  past — contrived 
to  see  that  there  were  no  duplicates;  that  each 
violet,  a  little  different  from  its  mate,  might, 
through  its  difference,  be  suited  to  a  separate 
purpose,  or  fitted  to  carry  a  separate  burden,  or 
designed  to  fill  a  separate  want. 

If  the  violets  had  been  as  like  as  pins,  they 
would  have  stayed  as  like  as  pins  when  planted 
in  that  friendly  dooryard. 

But  because  each  had  within  it  the  power  of 
transmitting  variation,  the  power  of  responding, 
ever  so  little,  to  the  trend  of  its  surroundings,  one 

violet  became  a  pansy. 

***** 

Among  our  human  acquaintances  we  know 
those  who  are  sturdy,  and  those  who  are  weak; 
those  who  have  well  developed  minds  at  the 
expense  of  their  muscles,  and  those  who  have  well 
developed  muscles  at  the  expense  of  their  minds, 
and  those  with  a  more  evenly  balanced  develop- 
ment; we  know  some  who  are  tall  and  some  who 
are  short;  some  with  brown  eyes  and  some  with 
blue;  some  who  lean  toward  commerce,  and  some 
who  lean  toward  art;  and  on  and  on,  throughout 

[135] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

an  infinite  number  of  variations,  an  infinite 
combination  of  those  variations,  each  variation 
representing  the  result  of  present  environment 
reacting  upon  all  of  the  environments  of  the  ages, 
stored  away. 

As  a  people,  we  traveled  b}'  stage  till  the 
railroad  came;  and  then  in  a  single  generation, 
because  of  the  variation  and  the  adaptability 
among  us,  we  found  surveyors  to  push  their 
transits  over  the  hills,  and  valleys,  and  streams; 
we  found  woodchoppers  to  make  ties,  we  found 
steel  makers  who  for  the  first  time  in  their  lives 
fashioned  a  rail,  we  found  engineers,  and  firemen, 
and  switchmen  and  superintendents,  and  railroad 
presidents,  each  to  play  his  part  in  fulfilling  the 
common  desire  for  transportation,  each  able  to 
adapt  himself  to  new  duties — and  all  because  of 
this  variation  that  is  in  us. 

As  a  people,  we  submitted  to  a  ruler  across  the 
seas  till  among  our  variant  individuals  there 
arose  some  who,  different  from  the  rest,  adapted 
themselves  to  the  formulation  of  a  declaration  of 
independence,  the  framing  of  a  code  of  principles, 
the  organization  of  a  successful  revolution. 

As  a  people,  threatened  with  the  constant  peril 
of  cures  which  were  worse  than  their  diseases, 
there  appeared  out  of  the  variable  mass  one  who 
gave  us  antiseptic  surgery. 

[136] 


ON  ADAPTATION 

Where  are  those  who,  a  century  ago,  said  that 
railroads  could  never  be?  Where  are  the  Tories 
of  revolutionary  times?  And  where  are  those 
barbers  of  ancient  days  with  their  cupping  glasses 
and  their  lancets  and  their  leeches? 

Ah,  where  are  the  pear  trees  of  Eurasia  that 
failed  to  fit  into  the  scheme  of  adaptation — where 
are  the  geraniums  that  did  not  learn  to  advertise 
to  the  bee — and  where  are  the  desert  cactus  plants 
that  could  not  protect  themselves  with  thorns? 
***** 

On  and  on  we  go,  one  step  backward  some- 
times, then  two  steps  forward — marking  time 
awhile,  then  onward  with  a  spurt — the  pear  tree, 
the  geraniums,  the  cactus  plants,  and  we — each 
individual  among  us  a  little  different  from  the 
rest,  each  with  a  separate  combination  of  old 
environment  stored  within  us,  finding  always 
an  infinity  of  new  environment  to  bring  it  out; 
growing  up  together,  the  pear  trees,  the  geraniums, 
the  cactus  plants  and  we,  all  of  us  depending  on 
the  others,  and  each  of  us  playing  his  separate  part 
in  the  forward  march  of  adaptation. 

On  and  on  we  go,  because  of  Infinite  Variation. 
***** 

And  so,  from  whatever  viewpoint  we  approach 
the  study  of  plants — whether  with  an  eager  eye 
to  the  future  and   the  past,  or  whether  with  an 

[137] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

eye,  opened  only  a  slit,  to  see  simply  the  things 
we  can  touch  and  feel,  we  find  evidences  of  adap- 
tation made  possible  through  variation. 

The  violet,  responding  to  kindness,  became  a 
pansy. 

The  pear,  responding  to  racial  tastes,  adapted 
itself  to  the  Orientals  and  to  us. 

Corn,  responding  to  a  need  for  food,  produced 
forty  times  the  kernels  which  it  had  produced 
before. 

The  orange,  the  lettuce,  the  celery,  and  every 
cultivated  plant  that  grows,  responding  to  our 
market  demands,  have  transformed  themselves  to 
meet  a  readier  sale. 

And  those  daffodil  and  narcissus  seedlings,  how 
eloquently  they  tell  of  the  adaptation  of  a  plant 
to  fit  an  individual  ideal! 

***** 

We  studied  electricity  a  long  time  without 
much  apparent  practical  benefit.  Then  suddenly 
electric  lights  and  trolley  cars  were  everywhere. 

We  knew  the  principles  of  sound  vibration  for 
centuries  before  the  telephone  and  the  phonograph 
appeared,  but  it  took  less  than  a  generation  to 
make  them  universal. 

We  dreamed  motor  carriages  three  hundred 
years  before  we  got  one,  and  then,  in  a  decade,  we 
awoke  to  find  our  dream  come  true. 

[138] 


ON  ADAPTATION 

And  almost  from  the  beginning,  man  has 
studied  the  forces  which  go  into  the  make-up  of 
life  without  much  encouragement,  till  now  these 
ages  of  contemplation  have  begun  to  crystallize 
into  thornless  cacti,  stoneless  plums,  fragrant  calla 
lilies  and  a  thousand  other  results  as  definite  and 
as  practical  as  the  trolley  or  the  telephone  or  the 
omnipresent  touring  car. 

Who  among  us  shall  say  what  new  plants  even 
a  decade,  now,  mav  bring  forth? 


— On  and  on  we  go;  one  step 
backward,  sometimes;  then  two 
steps  forward;  marking  time 
awhile;  then  onward  with  a  spurt. 


The  African  Orange  Daisy 

For  the  purpose  of  illustrating  the  practical  methods  of  har- 
nessing heredity,  let  us  take  the  African  Orange  daisy  and  see if ,  from 
the  variations  secured,  we  may  not  produce  a  new  pink  daisy. 


Let  Us  Now  Produce  a 
New  Pink  Daisy 

A  Practical  Lesson  In 
Harnessing  Heredity 


AN  architect,  in  selecting  the  materials  for  his 
structure,  sends  for  limestone  to  Bedford, 
Indiana,  or  for  marble  to  Carrara,  Italy,  or 
for  bricks  to  Haverstraw,  N.  Y.,  or  for  redwood 
rustic  to  California. 

In  the  process  of  turning  his  blue  print  into  a 
building,  he  draws  on  the  whole  world — a  little 
here  and  a  little  there — for  his  supplies. 

So,  too,  in  the  production  of  a  new  plant  on 
which  we  wish  to  try  our  architectural  skill,  we 
must  first  seek  out  the  things  with  which  to  build. 
Only  our  search  will  be  not  a  search  for  sub- 
stances, but  a  search  for  stored  up  heredities — not 
a  search  for  bricks  or  stone  or  lumber,  but  a  search 

for  living  traits. 

***** 

The  sturdy  dandelions  in  our  vacant  lots,  with 
their  parachute-like  seed  balls,  reveal  a  structural 

[Volume  I — Chapter  V] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

ingenuity  and  a  fitness  to  survive  which  may  have 
cost  ten  thousand  generations  of  patient  struggle. 

The  sweetness  of  our  cherries,  our  grapes,  our 
plums,  has  been  developed  only  through  ages 
and  ages  of  response  to  environment,  with  some 
environments  so  oft  repeated  that  they  have 
hardened  into  heredity. 

The  flowers  on  our  lawns  may  have  acquired 
their  colors  in  Germany,  or  in  Ecuador,  or  in 
Siberia;  our  nuts  reflect  flavors  picked  up  through 
a  world-wide  migration;  and  even  our  early 
vegetables  show  traits  which  hark  back  to  times 
before  animals  and  men  came  into  their  lives. 

So,  just  as  the  earth  has  stored  up  limestone 
in  Indiana,  and  marble  in  Italy,  and  brick-clay  in 
New  York,  and  ten-thousand-year-old  redwoods  in 
California,  for  the  architect  to  draw  upon,  just  so, 
in  a  world  full  of  plants,  representing  an  infinity 
of  ancestry  with  its  infinity  of  heredity,  will  we 
find  an  infinity  of  traits  with  which  to  build. 

If  we  wish  to  change  the  color  of  a  flower,  or 
its  scent,  or  its  size,  or  its  adaptability  to  climate — 
if  we  have  it  in  mind  to  transform  a  tree  or  its 
fruit,  or  to  give  any  plant  a  new  trait  or  a  new 
habit — the  most  practical  way  is  to  dig  the  quality 

we  want  out  of  the  mass  of  heredity  about  us. 

***** 

"I  thought,"  says  some  one,  "that  plants  could 

[142] 


ON  HARNESSING  HEREDITY 

be  transformed  merely  by  changing  the  environ- 
ments in  which  they  grow." 

"So  they  can,"  replies  Mr.  Burbank,  "if  time  is 
no  object.  But  the  quick  and  economical  way  is 
to  take  advantage  of  the  combined  environments 
of  the  past  which  are  at  our  instant  disposal;  to 
short-cut  to  our  result  by  using  well  established 
traits  and  thoroughly  formed  habits,  rather  than 
to  spend  the  years  or  lifetimes  which  might  be 
necessary  to  produce  new  traits  and  new  habits 
from  the  beginning. 

"It  is  better  to  seek  out,  first,  what  nature  has 
stored  away  for  us,  and  then  to  use  new  environ- 
ments to  improve  or  intensify  traits  and  habits 
which  already  have  the  advantage  of  several 
centuries  of  start. 

"It  is  the  same  principle  of  economy  which  we 
apply  to  everything  we  do. 

"So  long  as  there  is  plenty  of  coal  within  easy 
reach  it  does  not  pay  us  to  build  machines  to 
utilize  the  energy  of  the  sun's  rays  or  of  the  ocean 
tides.  And,  similarly,  so  long  as  there  are  untold 
thousands  of  plants  embodying,  in  some  form, 
almost  every  conceivable  trait  we  might  desire — 
untold  thousands  of  plants  like  the  cactus  waiting 
only  our  attention  to  make  them  useful — we  can 
hardly  afford  to  waste  time  in  doing  what  nature 
already,  laboriously,  has  done." 

[143] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

The  hard  part,  always,  is  to  make  the  start. 

We  who  are  late  sleepers,  for  example,  know 
the  weeks  of  discouraging  attempts  it  takes  to 
fix  the  habit  of  arising  at  seven  instead  of  eight, 
or  at  six  instead  of  seven.  Yet,  once  we  have 
thoroughly  accustomed  ourselves  to  the  new  hour 
of  awakening,  it  is  just  as  difficult  to  get  back  to 
the  old  hour  as  it  was  to  get  away  from  it. 

It  is  as  if  the  tendencies  within  us,  having 
accommodated  themselves  to  each  other  and  to 
our  surroundings,  cling  together  tenaciously  to 
maintain  the  equilibrium  between  themselves; 
when  we  change  our  surroundings  they  adjust 
themselves  to  the  change  with  difficulty;  but  once 
adjusted,  hold  together  as  firmly  again  as  they 
held  before. 

So  in  plant  life;  when  we  transplant  a  flower  or 
a  tree,  it  shows  signs,  in  accommodating  itself  to 
its  new  surroundings,  of  evident  distress;  it  looks 
sickly,  its  leaves  droop,  it  gives  many  outward 
proofs  of  the  inward  struggle  which  it  is  under- 
going. 

As  soon,  however,  as  its  suddenly  scattered 
tendencies  have  collected  themselves,  the  plant 
begins  an  era  of  immediate  improvement,  and 
does  as  well  or  better  than  it  did  before  trans- 
planting— as  well,  in  fact,  as  its  new  surroundings 
will  permit. 

[144] 


ON  HARNESSING  HEREDITY 

If  new  habits  are  hard  to  start,  new  traits  are 
harder.  It  is  hard  to  teach  a  plant  to  twine  when 
it  has  never  twined  before,  or  to  persuade  it  to 
be  pink  when  it  has  always  been  yellow;  just  as 
it  is  hard  to  get  a  boy  interested  in  the  study  of 
law  when  his  likes,  all  his  life,  have  been  along 
the  lines  of  engineering  or  mechanics. 

In  the  establishment  of  a  new  trait,  in  fact, 
the  whole  motion  of  life  must  be  interrupted,  its 
momentum  arrested,  the  resulting  inertia  over- 
come, and  new  momentum  in  a  new  direction 
gained. 

But,  if  every  difficulty  has  its  recompense,  we 
are  well  repaid  for  the  labor  of  acquiring  or 
instilling  a  new  trait  by  the  fact  that,  once 
acquired,  it  has  a  tendency  of  its  own  to  increase 
and  expand  and  grow. 

The  boy  who  finally  gets  interested  in  law,  who 
gets  past  the  point  where  it  becomes  an  irksome 
drudgery,  begins,  at  length,  to  develop  a  steadfast 
love  for  his  work  so  that  what  was  to  him,  once,  a 
bug-bear  at  last  becomes  an  absorbing  ideal. 

The  cactus,  for  example,  which  produced  its 
first  spines  with  difficulty,  now  gets  more  and 
more  spiny,  although  the  need  for  spines  has 
disappeared.  Our  flowers  grow  more  beautiful, 
our  fruits  more  luscious  as  their  tendencies  gain 
momentum. 

[145] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

We  may  take  it  as  a  rule,  almost,  that  a  habit, 
once  fixed,  hardens:  that  a  trait,  once  established, 
grows  stronger  and  stronger. 

The  easiest  way,  therefore,  is  to  work  with 
heredity,  and  not  against  it — to  spend  a  month 
searching  out  a  desirable  trait  or  habit,  rather 
than  to  spend  a  year  or  a  decade  trying  to 
overcome  an  undesirable  one. 

***** 

And,  now,  to  a  practical  experiment. 

From  almost  any  seed  house  we  may  procure 
the  seeds  of  two  African  wild  flowers.  One  is  the 
African  orange  daisy,  the  other  a  white  daisy  of 
the  same  family. 

The  orange  daisy  is  a  sun-loving  flower,  as  its 
beautiful,  rich  tint  clearly  testifies. 

The  white  daisy,  by  its  whiteness,  shows  equally 
unmistakable  evidence  of  an  ancestry  which  has 
preferred  the  shade. 

"Bright  colored  flowers,"  said  Mr.  Burbank, 
"are  almost  invariably  those  which  have  grown 
in  the  sun.  White  flowers  are  either  those  which 
bloom  at  night,  or  which,  if  blooming  in  the  day 
time,  have  stayed  in  the  shade." 

"Because  the  sun  reacts  with  the  soil  to  produce 
bright  colors,  while  the  shade  does  not?"  was 
asked. 

"No,"  replied  Mr.  Burbank.    "I  prefer  to  believe 

[146] 


ON  HARNESSING  HEREDITY 

that  the  bees  make  the  colors.  The  flowers  which 
grow  in  the  bright  light  need  their  brilliance  to 
attract  the  insects;  flowers  in  the  shade  are  more 
easily  observed  if  they  are  light  or  white  in  color; 
it  is  all  a  matter  of  advertising  contrast;  and, 
throughout  ages  and  ages,  each  particular  flower 
has  been  striving  to  perfect  a  color  contrast  scheme 
of  its  own.  It  may  be  that  the  combination  of  sun 
and  soil  makes  possible  brighter  colors  than  the 
combination  of  shade  and  soil;  but  wind-loving 
plants,  like  corn  and  trees,  which  grow  in  the  sun, 
do  not  bedeck  themselves  in  colors — only  the 
flowers  which  find  it  necessary  to  attract  the 
insects. 

"In  practice,  at  any  rate,  the  color  of  a  flower 
is  one  of  the  reliable  guides  in  the  study  of  its 
life-history." 

Taking  the  orange  daisy  and  its  white  cousin 
side  by  side,  we  see  at  once  a  family  resem- 
blance. The  leaf  formation,  the  root  formation, 
the  arrangement  and  the  number  of  petals,  the 
arrangement  of  stamens  and  pistils,  bespeak  the 
fact  that  here  are  two  plants  of  a  kind;  one  orange 
and  one  white;  the  white  one  taller  a  little,  more 
graceful  perhaps,  and  slightly  less  hardy;  but 
cousins,  beyond  doubt,  having  within  them  many 
parallel  strains  of  heredity. 

Let  us  assume,  then,  that  the  orange  of  the 

[147] 


£ 


^*» 


4?tf 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

orange  daisy  is  the  heredity  of  ages  of  sunshine, 
and  the  white  of  the  other  daisy  is  the  inheritance 
of  ages  of  shade;  that  both  started  from  the  same 
point,  and  that  one  found  itself  growing  in  cleared 
fields,  while  around  the  other  developed  a  forest 
of  shade;  so  that,  finally,  as  environment  piled  up 
on  environment  and  accumulated  into  heredity, 
each  flower  became  so  firmly  fixed  in  its  own 
characteristics  as  to  constitute  a  species,  as  man 
has  chosen  to  call  it,  of  its  own. 

If  we  take  the  seeds  of  the  African  orange 
daisy,  and  plant  them  in  the  shade,  they  will 
still  produce  orange  flowers.  That  is  stored  up 
heredity.  No  doubt,  if  we  continued,  year  after 
year,  to  replant  them  in  the  shade  for  a  century 
or  so,  they  would  begin  to  transform  themselves 
to  white  as  the  other  daisy  did. 

If  we  plant  the  white  African  daisy  in  the 
sunshine,  it  will  still  give  us  flowers  of  white — 
the  heredity  of  ages  overbalancing  the  pull  of 
immediate  environment,  and  needing  a  long  con- 
tinued repetition  of  environment  to  balance  and 
finally  overcome  it;  but  if  we  were  to  keep  it  in 
the  sun  throughout  enough  generations,  it  would, 
no  doubt,  bear  us  flowers  of  brilliant  orange. 

Here,  then,  is  a  single  plant  reflecting  two 
divergent  strains  of  heredity — one  orange,  one 
white  —  one   sturdy,   one   weak  —  each   strain   so 

[1481 


We  Find  a  White  Cousin 

Searching  the  African  daisy  family  we  perceive  that  one 
branch  has  been  stranded  from  its  kin  and,  finding  itself  in  the 
shade,    has    become    a    white    daisy.      From    the    many    similarities 
between   the   two  flowers   there  can  be  no   question  that  the 
white  and  the  African  orange  daisy  have  a  common 
ancestry — although    some    scientists    classify 
them  as  different  species,  while  some 
merely  classify  them  as  dif- 
ferent varieties  of  the 
same  species. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

thoroughly  fixed  that  in  a  lifetime  it  would  be 
impossible,  through  pure  environment,  to  over- 
throw it. 

Let  us  next  take  a  twenty-foot  flower  bed,  say, 
divide  it  in  the  middle,  plant  one  side  solid  with 
the  orange  daisies,  and  the  other  side  solid  with 
white  daisies,  and  let  the  bees  and  the  breezes  mix 
those  heredities  up  to  produce  for  us  the  new  pink 
daisy  which  we  have  planned  to  produce. 

Up  come  the  orange  flowers,  and  up  come  the 
white.  The  breezes  and  the  bees  carry  the  pollen 
from  flower  to  flower;  the  petals  fall  away,  and 
disclose  the  pods  of  fertile  seed  in  which,  for  the 
first  time,  these  two  strains  of  heredities  are 
combined. 

In  the  millions  of  seeds  which  we  can  beat 
out  of  these  pods,  there  are  some  with  the  white 
tendencies  stored  away  unaltered,  some  with  the 
orange  tendencies  still  predominant — some  with 
white  pulling  evenly  against  orange  to  make  a 
red,  some  with  orange  slightly  stronger  than  white, 
and  all  of  the  infinity  of  variation  in  between. 

We  shall  find  in  those  seeds  the  mixed  ten- 
dencies not  only  of  the  two  species,  but  of  all  of 
the  families  of  two  species,  and  of  the  individuals 
of  those  families;  mixed,  upset,  disturbed — so 
thoroughly  that,  not  only  will  the  life  history  of 
both  parents  be  laid  bare  in  the  resulting  plants, 

[150]  ^*^° 


•a 

Sa 

Si 

£.§•* 


^      cc  <3  ~* 


Era 
re  ra  5< 

S-.a-S 


n  a  i 
3  2. 


So  « 
re  a* 

a'S  w 

re  ft  S 

c  3  a- 

re    •*  ~. 


5  « 


.^  re    ^  ^  , 
~5  re  re  ^  i 


•aw 
a  2. 


S3 


3  -M 


ST.  ^  83 

*  3 


f?"     3  «-  re  S 


2!  2  a. 


J*  O*  a  re  5"  3 

0  a  3-s-  -» 


6.23: 
o3£: 


...  re  0] 
**  ■  ~  re  a,  a 

<»  j.  a  S?« 
2  a  3  o  B 

ffg*--** 

o  S  Sr-B 

go  «  3 

3*8 


ft 

a 
a. 

O 
ft 

C3 


3 

ft 

ft 

S* 
»■■♦. 

o* 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

but  through  the  blends,  new  characteristics,  prob- 
ably never  seen  before,  will  show  themselves. 

Here  we  have  taken  two  plants  which,  since 
the  beginning,  have  been  storing  up  traits;  each 
working  out  its  own  destiny;  each  separated  from 
the  other,  perhaps  by  a  mountain  range  or  a  lake, 
and  thus  never  before  brought  to  a  place  where 
those  heredities  could  combine;  then  in  a  single 
season,  through  combination,  we  produce  the  seed 
for  a  new  daisy  reflecting  every  conceivable  blend 
of  those  different  heredities. 

***** 

When  we  plant  this  seed  the  following  spring, 
we  shall  have  pure  orange  daisies  and  pure  white 
daisies,  pink  ones,  purple  ones,  yellow  ones; 
daisies  large  and  daisies  small;  daisies  with  big 
black  centers,  and  daisies  in  which  the  centers  are 
colored  the  same  as  the  outside  edges. 

We  shall  find  some  a  deeper  orange  than 
the  orange  daisy  because  the  balance  which  has 
determined  the  established  shade  of  orange  has 
been  upset. 

We  shall  find  purer  whites  than  the  white 
daisy  ever  knew— as  a  result  of  the  upset. 

We  shall  find  daisies  with  petals  whose  color 
front  and  back  is  the  same,  and  daisies  with 
different  colors  inside  and  out. 

We  shall,  in  short,  find  all  of  the  old  inherit- 

[152] 


A  Broadening  of  the  Petals 

One  of  the  first  variations   which   we  shall  see   in  our  bed 

of  crosses  is  the  white  daisy  shown  here  in  which  the  color  of  the 

white    parent    is    unchanged    but    which    has    broad    petals 

instead    of    the    narrow    ones    of    both    parents. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

ances  of  the  flower  and  of  the  combinations  of 
them — all  of  the  colors,  scents  if  there  be  any, 
shapes,  sizes,  forms,  elements  of  strength  or  weak- 
ness— uncovered  before  us. 

And  between  the  white  and  the  orange  we  have 
but  to  select  the  particular  pink  flower  of  our 
fancy. 

If  the  flower  we  select,  perchance,  showed  some 
weakness,  or  if  its  tint  were  a  little  too  light  or 
too  dark,  or  if  for  any  other  reason  among  this 
infinite  color  variation  we  did  not  find  the  exact 
result  we  sought,  another  season  or  another  would 
surety  bring  it  forth;  for  next  year,  instead  of 
planting  white  and  orange,  we  should  plant  a 
selection  of  our  new  daisies,  and  instead  of  getting 
a  combination  of  two  parentages,  we  should  get  a 
combination  of  combinations. 

Then,  having  secured  the  color  called  for  in 
our  original  mental  blue  print,  we  might  find 
structural  improvements  to  make  in  the  flower — 
we  might  want  to  increase  its  height  or  to 
lengthen  the  daily  period  of  its  opening,  or  to 
rearrange  its  petals  into  a  more  chrysanthemum- 
like form,  or  to  increase  or  decrease  the  size 
of  its  center  —  or  to  accomplish  any  one  of  a 
number  of  other  ideals  which  we  may  have  set  up 
for  our  production. 

So    on    we    go,    season    after    season,    always 

[154] 


More  Orange  in  the  Center 

Selecting  another  white  daisy  from  the  patch  we  find  the  same  broad 
petals,  but  with  a  greater  suggestion  of  orange  in  the  center. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

selecting,  getting  one  this  year  which  bears  a 
podful  of  seeds  for  next,  with  the  bees  and  the 
winds  anxious  to  carry  on  the  work,  narrowing 
our  lines  of  heredity  down  and  down  and  down, 
until  finally  some  day — maybe  fourteen  months 
after  the  experiment  began,  or  maybe  fourteen 
years,  we  can  say:  "Here  is  a  plant  such  as  no 
man   ever   saw   before — here   is   the   exact  plant 

which  we  have  planned." 

***** 

"But  will  the  seed  of  this  new  pink  daisy," 
some  one  asks,  "produce  more  daisies  of  this  same 
kind  of  pink?" 

"Of  all  of  the  seeds  of  that  daisy,"  says  Mr. 
Burbank,  "there  might  not  be  one  which  repro- 
duced its  parent  pink.  The  seeds  of  that  daisy 
sown  together  in  a  bed  might  easily  show  as  great 
a  variation  as  the  seeds  of  the  white  and  the  orange 
showed  when  they  were  first  planted  after  the 
bees  and  the  winds  had  done  their  work. 

"But  that  need  be  no  discouragement.  By 
dividing  the  roots  of  the  daisy  we  can,  in  a  single 
season,  from  a  single  plant,  produce  a  whole  bed 
of  plants — each  similar  to  the  original  plant 
because  each,  in  fact,  is  a  part  of  the  original 
plant. 

"We  should,  at  the  start,  then,  propagate  our 
pink   daisy   by    dividing   the   roots.     We   should 

[156] 


A  Full  Orange  Center 

Looking  still  further  into  the   white  daisies 

which  we  have  produced  we  finally  find  one  which  has 

center    of   solid    orange.      If    we    were    to    take    all    of    the    white 

daisies  from  the  patch  we  should  find  no  two  alike  but  an 

almost  infinite  range  of  individual  difference. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

find  that  for  practical  purposes  it  would  thus  be 
possible  to  produce  all  of  the  daisies  we  desired. 
We  might  never  even  care  to  make  use  of  the  seed. 
But  if  we  did,  by  keeping  our  new  pink  daisies 
together  year  after  year,  in  eight  years,  or  perhaps 
ten  or  fourteen,  pink  being  crossed  with  pink,  and 
the  upset  equilibrium  restored,  we  should  find  that 
we  were  getting  seeds  which  came  true,  or  nearly 
true,  to  type. 

"You  see,  we  upset  heredity  to  produce  varia- 
tion; then  we  let  it  settle  down  to  a  balance  to 
perpetuate  the  particular  variation  which  we  have 

chosen." 

***** 

The  architect  can  always  build  a  second  struc- 
ture better  than  the  first,  and  the  plant  improver, 
likewise,  finds  in  each  experiment  a  multitude  of 
new  suggestions  for  the  production  of  still  other 
changes  or  improvements. 

In  even  the  handful  of  daisy  variations  which 
can  be  reproduced  here,  there  are  to  be  seen 
countless  new  tendencies,  any  one  of  which  might 
lead  to  the  perfection  of  a  wholly  different,  if  not 
a  better  flower. 

There  are,  of  course,  the  variations  in  size — 
and  those  with  the  long  petals  show  that  with 
encouragement  the  flower,  simply  by  quantity 
production  and  continued  selection,  might  produce 

[158] 


More  Evidence  of  Broad  Petals 

Taking    up    the    orange    and    yellow    daisies    in    the 

patch,   we  find   the   same    tendency    toward   a   broadening   of 

the    petal    which,    taking    back    to    old    ancestry,    evidently,    changes 

the  appearance  of  the  flower,  as   can  be  seen  by  comparing 

with  the  direct  color  photograph  print  on  page  149, 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

an  offspring  with  blossoms  three  inches  or  four 
or  more  in  diameter. 

There  are,  in  the  pictures  shown  here,  some 
which  indicate  a  tendency  toward  doubleness 
which  gives  rise  to  the  thought  that  the  new 
pink  daisy,  if  desirable,  might  be  entirely  filled 
up  with  petals  so  that  its  center  would  not  show 
at  all,  even  as  its  very  distant  relative,  the  old 
maid's  marigold,  has  been  filled  up — an  interesting 
process  which  will  be  explained  later. 

Those  daisies  with  the  tendency  toward  dark- 
ened petals  at  the  inner  end  might  be  cultivated 
and  selected  until  finally  they  produced  an  off- 
spring of  a  purplish  black  in  the  center  with  only 
a  fringe  of  color,  or,  until  the  whole  inside  was 
solid  black. 

In  other  of  the  variations  which  are  shown,  it 
might  be  noted  that  some  are  pink,  or  yellow,  or 
of  colors  in  between,  inside  and  out,  while  others 
show  deep  red  or  purple  streaks  on  the  backs  of 
their  petals.  From  these  it  might  reasonably  be 
expected  to  produce  a  daisy  having  one  color 
within,  and  another  color  without. 

From  the  bed  of  seedlings  pictured,  with  no 
two  daisies  exactly  alike,  there  might  be  prepared 
a  list  of  a  thousand  different  tendencies,  each 
susceptible  of  cultivation,  each  the  possible 
starting  point  of  some  new  transformation. 

[160] 


A  Better  Orange  Than  Its  Parent 

Looking  further  among   the  yellow  flowers   we  find  one 

which   has   a  more   brilliant  orange   even   than   its   parent.     A 

comparison  between  this  plant  and  the  one  opposite  page  158  will  show 

not  only  the  difference  in  color,  but  the  fact  that  this  orange 

daisy   retains   much    of    the   gracefulness    of    its   parent. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

It  is  only  when  the  life  history  of  a  plant,  with 
all  of  its  divergent  tendencies,  is  uncovered  in 
some  such  way  as  this,  that  the  plant  architect  can 
see  the  full  possibilities  of  further  improvement. 

***** 

The  pink  daisy  which  Mr.  Burbank  grew 
especially  for  the  purpose  of  illustrating  this 
chapter  may,  or  may  not,  be  a  desirable  produc- 
tion— it  may  or  may  not  repay  the  thought  and 
effort  which  it  cost — but  it  shows  the  simplest 
method  which  the  plant  architect  has  within  his 
reach — a  method  which,  applied  in  the  same  way 
toward  the  accomplishment  of  a  more  utilitarian 
purpose,  has  meant  and  will,  more  and  more, 
continue  to  mean,  untold  fortunes  of  added  wealth 

to  the  world. 

***** 

In  order  that  the  illustration  may  be  complete, 
let  us  sketch  some  of  the  possibilities  of  employing 
this  method. 

Let  us  begin  with  some  garden  vegetable  which 
for  centuries  has  been  picking  up  traits  along  the 
lines  in  which  we  have  encouraged  it — working 
away,  always,  from  the  wild,  and  toward  the 
accomplishment  of  our  ideals. 

Let  us  say  that  we  have  been  selecting  it, 
unconsciously  perhaps,  for  its  tenderness,  or 
sweetness,  or  early  ripening,  or  productivity,  or 

[162] 


Variation  on  the  Outside 

In  the  same  patch  we  find  not  only  evidences 

of  heredity  on  the  face  of  the  flower,   but  on   its   back. 

The  bouquet  pictured  here  shows,  on  the  back  of  the  petals,  yellotv 

tendencies,  greenish   tendencies  and  even  purple  streaks 

such  as  neither  of  the  parents  show. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

along  any  line  which  has  made  it  more  desirable 
or  more  marketable. 

Its  evolution,  then,  has  been  simply  a  slow 
response  to  a  new  environment  which  for  the  first 
time  in  its  history  included  man. 

Suppose,  now,  that  we  desire  to  work,  in  a 
single  season  or  a  dozen  seasons,  an  improvement 
in  this  vegetable  which  will  overshadow  all  of  the 
improvement  which  countless  generations  of  culti- 
vation and  unconscious  selection  have  wrought. 

Our  first  step  is  to  secure  its  wild  counterpart — 
inedible,  maybe,  sour,  perhaps,  tough,  no  doubt; 
wholly  undesirable  as  compared  with  the  plant 
which  the  seed  bought  at  any  grocery  store  will 
produce. 

Nevertheless  in  the  wild  brother  of  our  plant 
there  is  confined  an  infinity  of  old  heredity  just 
as  an  infinity  of  old  heredity  was  confined  in 
those  two  daisies;  and  the  bees,  and  the  winds, 
can  bring  forth  variation  between  the  tame  and 
the  wild,  just  as  striking  and  just  as  widely 
divergent  as  the  variations  in  the  daisies. 

Perhaps  the  first  attempt  to  mix  up  the 
heredities  of  the  tame  and  the  wild  might  produce 
no  improvement — only  retrogression.  But  if  we 
keep  on  mixing  heredities  and  combining  com- 
binations of  them,  we  shall  soon  see  before  us 
evidences  of  all  of  the  tendencies  of  the  plant — 

[164] 


We  Could  Make  a  Purple  Daisy 

In  our  daisy  patch  we  find  one  white  daisy,  unlike 
the  rest,  with  deep  purple  edges  on  the  ends  of  its  petals.     If 
were    m    search    of   a   purple    daisy    we    might    try    the    seed 
this,  and  from    the   variations   resulting  produce,   at   last,  a 

daisy  which  was  all  of  the  purple  color  shown  here. 


of 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

tendencies  which,  though  perhaps  not  desirable, 
point  the  way  to  an  end  worthy  of  accomplishment. 
Then,  instead  of  working  with  a  single  wild 
and  a  single  cultivated  plant,  if  we  seek  out  a 
dozen  wild  plants  or  a  hundred  of  them — some 
plants  from  mountain  environments  and  some 
from  swamps,  some  from  rich  woodland  soil,  and 
some  from  the  desert,  we  shall  get  a  still  better 
idea  of  the  possibilities  stored  within  the  plant — 
possibilities  which  need  only  combination  and 
selection  to  bring  forth  a  perfected  product. 
***** 

Or,  suppose  we  have  a  tree  which  bears 
delicious  fruit  in  small  quantities. 

Let  us  then  find  one  with  a  tendency  to  over- 
produce, even  though  its  fruit,  in  size,  flavor  and 
appearance,  be  inferior. 

In  some  combination  between  the  two,  simply 
by  following  the  leads  which  those  combinations 
themselves  will  give,  we  shall  in  a  few  years,  very 
likely,  discover  one  variation  which  combines  the 
productiveness  of  one  strain  of  heredity  with  the 
deliciousness  of  another. 

***** 

Or,  perhaps,  we  have  a  plant  which  bears  us 
berries  of  wonderful  flavor,  but  too  small  to  be 
marketable. 

Let  us  find  a  plant  with  large,  beautiful  berries, 

[166] 


Our  First  Pink  Daisy 


Looking   over    the    variations    in    our   patch    we 

discover  one  which  has  a  dirty  pinkish  color.     It  is  a  step 

toward  the  end  which   we  have  started  to  achieve,  yet  is  far  from 

a  satisfactory   result.      The  petals   are   too   broad  and   too 

stubby,  and  not   evenly   or  gracefully  arranged. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

even  though  they  be  insipid,  and  see  if,  between 
the  two,  by  matching  heredities,  there  is  not  to 
be  found  some  new  berry  which  is  luscious,  large 

and  beautiful. 

**><** 

Or,  supposing  that  in  our  own  particular  soil 
there  are  varieties  we  should  like  to  grow  which 
fail  to  prosper,  while  other  less  desirable  varieties 
do  well. 

Our  problem  then  is  but  the  combination  of 
heredities  to  bring  the  desirability  of  one  with  the 
hardiness  of  another  into  a  single  new  plant  which, 
as  it  were,  we  make  to  order. 

***** 

Or,  if  there  is  a  variety  which  will  not 
withstand  the  rigor  of  our  winters,  perhaps  it  can 
be  combined  with  a  poorer  variety  which  has  been 
educated  to  them. 

Or,  the  other  way  around,  if  there  is  a  plant 
which  withers  in  the  heat  of  our  summers,  perhaps 
some  combination  can  be  effected  with  an  already 
existing  brother  or  cousin,  which,  throughout  the 
generations,  has  conquered  the  obstacle  of  heat. 
***** 

And  so  on  throughout  the  whole  world-wide 
range  of  environment. 

We  shall  find  plants  which  have  grown  accus- 
tomed to  the  wet,  and  plants  which  are  hardened 

[168] 


A  Second  Step  in  Selection 

Looking  further  we  find  another  pink  daisy  with  longer  petals,  but 
too  small  a  center,  and  still  of  a  muddy  color. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

to  the  dry;  plants  which  thrive  in  heat  and  plants 
which  thrive  in  cold;  plants  which  like  sandy  soil, 
and  plants  which  can  do  well  even  in  adobe  clay; 
plants  which  have  become  used  to  the  glare  of 
the  sun,  and  those  which  live  retiring  lives  in  the 
deepest  recesses  of  the  shade;  plants  which  bear 
flowers  large  and  small,  early  and  late,  of  short 
seasons  and  of  long,  fragrant  and  unscented, 
simple  and  complex.  We  shall  find  fruit-flavors 
which  are  sour,  sweet,  acid,  bitter;  fruit  skins 
which  are  smooth,  fuzzy;  fruits  themselves  that 
are  large,  small,  even,  irregular,  coarse,  delicate; 
we  shall  find  those  which  will  stand  shipment 
across  a  continent  and  those  which  spoil  almost 
as  soon  as  they  are  picked. 

We  shall  find  a  range  of  differences  in  wild 
plants,  as  great  as  the  range  of  environments  in 
which  they  have  grown. 

And  we  shall  find  a  range  of  differences  in 
cultivated  plants  as  great  as  the  range  of  differ- 
ences in  races  and  nations  and  individuals  who 

have  grown  them. 

***** 

"I  saw  an  interesting  illustration  on  the  relation 
between  heredity  and  environment  at  the  circus 
one  day,"  said  Mr.  Burbank. 

"There,  in  a  wire  cage,  was  a  tiny  dog  together 
with  a  lot  of  monkeys. 

[170] 


Try,  Try  Again 


With  all  of  our  pink  daisies  before  us  we  find  one, 

now,   with    a   center   which    is    larger   and   more    brilliant   and   with 

petals  more  nearly  like  those  of  the  parent— slender 

and  graceful  without  seeming  stubby. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

"While  I  was  watching,  a  trainer  appeared  and 
snapped  his  whip. 

"The  monkeys  quit  their  play  with  the  dog, 
ran  around  in  a  circle,  and  climbed  up  the  wire 
of  the  cage. 

"The  little  dog  followed  them,  but  could  not 
climb.  He  would  start  up  and  drop  back,  start  up 
again  and  drop  back  again. 

"Then  he  would  look  down  at  his  feet,  and  if 
a  dog  ever  showed  surprise,  that  dog  did.  He 
seemed  to  be  wondering  why  he  could  not  climb 
as  monkeys  do. 

"The  environment  was  there,  but  the  heredity 
was  different. 

"We  see  the  same  thing  in  plant  life.  The 
sweet  peas  with  their  tendrils  and  the  nasturtiums 
with  their  leaves  can  climb  like  the  monkeys, 
while  other  plants  can  not  be  forced  to  climb 
because  there  is  no  climbing  heredity  within  them. 

"You  may  try  to  make  corn  climb  a  hop  pole, 
or  to  make  hops  grow  straight  in  the  air  without 
a  pole  or  string.  But  in  a  lifetime  you  can  not 
succeed. 

"It  is  heredity,  heredity,  heredity.  Environment, 
unless  oft-repeated,  only  serves  to  bring  heredity 
out. 

"The  climbing  monkeys  and  the  disappointed 
dog  show  us  an  important  truth  in  our  work. 

[172] 


At  Last  the  Pink  Daisy 

From  the  pink  variations  which  we  have  selected  from  our  original 

daisy  patch,  we  finally,  perhaps  the  first  season,  or  perhaps  the  second, 

secure   a  pink   daisy   of   the   same  size,   shape   and   gracefulness 

as    the    orange    daisy    with    which    we   started    on    page    140. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

"If  we  want  to  take  advantage  of  a  climbing 
tendency  in  a  plant  or  an  animal,  let  us  by  all 
means  find  a  plant  or  an  animal  in  whose  heredity 
that  climbing  tendency  is  a  part.  Let  us  not  try 
to  teach  monkeys  to  bark,  or  dogs  to  swing  from 
the  limbs  of  trees  by  their  tails;  let  us  not  try  to 
make  corn  climb  the  hop  pole,  or  to  transform 
hops  into  shade  trees. 

"Maybe  these  things  could  be  done.  In  fact, 
with  unlimited  time,  there  is  no  question  that 
they  could  be  done.  But  with  plenty  of  plants 
about  us  with  ready-made  heredities  of  which  we 
can  avail  ourselves  in  a  single  season,  it  would  be 
folly  to  try  to  accomplish  the  same  result  in  a 
harder  way,  well  knowing  that  only  the  twentieth 
or  thirtieth  generation  ahead  of  us  could  see  the 
results  of  our  work. 

"In  our  search  for  heredities  we  shall  find 
many  plants  which  are  scarcely  worth  working 
with — plants  whose  environments  have  not  led 
into  heredities  which  are  desirable  for  our  ends. 

"But  at  the  same  time  we  shall  find  scores  and 
scores  of  plants  in  the  least  expected  places — 
plants  like  the  cactus,  which,  at  first,  seem  impos- 
sible of  use — which  with  a  little  encouragement 

yield  us  rare  heredities  for  our  work." 

***** 

When  the  masons,  and  carpenters,  and  deco- 

[174] 


ON  HARNESSING  HEREDITY 

rators  have  finished  the  architect's  house,  and  the 
keys  are  turned  over  to  the  new  owner — then, 
and  from  that  moment,  the  structure  begins  to 
depreciate  until  it  crumbles  in  decay.  The 
furniture  movers  dent  the  stair  rails,  the  chil- 
dren scratch  the  doors,  dust  begins  to  darken  and 
destroy  the  lustre  of  polished  surfaces;  and  the 
sun  and  night,  and  the  frosts  and  the  thaws,  and 
the  rain  and  the  heat,  slowly  and  irresistibly  carry 
the  structure  on  its  downward  grade. 

But  when  the  architect  of  plants  has  combined 
old  traits  into  the  production  of  his  ideal,  he  has 
fashioned  something  which,  if  his  work  is  well 
done,  the  suns,  and  the  rains,  and  the  frosts,  and 
the  winds  will  not  depreciate;  he  has  produced  a 
living  thing  which,  in  spite  of  discouragements, 
and  neglect,  and  abuse,  will  keep  on,  and  on,  and 
on — improving  as  it  goes. 

***** 

How  few,  indeed,  are  the  materials  which  the 
architect  of  buildings  has  at  his  command,  when 
compared  with  the  range  of  living  traits  which  the 
architect  of  plants  may  call  into  play! 


— Our  search,  then,  is  a  search  for  stored 
up  heredities — a  search  for  living  traits. 


■2    a  § 
c 


is 


•e  «>      S      « 
S      ~.2  « 


cs  <n   C  «  O   l 

®     5 


<a      «£  P  S      2 
■s  3  at-*  „     ir=» »>  2 


"S^S  3  -5  -5 


2  £ 


ca«5~      *:  «  ©  e 


i;« 


S-S-SsS 


Short-cuts  Into 
the  Centuries  to  Come 

Better  Plants  Secured  By 
Hurrying  Evolution 


WITH  the  bees  buzzing  about  in  the  thou- 
sands of  blossoms  on  your  experiment 
farm,"  said  a  visitor,  "I  should  think 
that  the  plants  would  get  all  mixed  up;  I 
should  think  that  the  daisies  would  be  crossed 
with  carnations,  and  the  carnations  with  balloon 
flowers,  and  the  balloon  flowers  with  poppies,  and 

the  poppies  with  cactus." 

***** 

If  we  were  to  watch  a  bee  at  work,  we  should 
quickly  discover  one  reason  why  this  does  not 
happen — one  reason,  at  least,  why  the  cherries, 
and  the  prunes,  and  the  roses,  and  the  geraniums 
have  not  long  ago  been  reduced  to  a  scrambled 
mess. 

Our  observation  of  the  bee  would  show  that,  in 
going  from  flower  to  flower,  it  goes  only  to  flowers 
of  a  kind. 

[Volume  I — Chapter  VI] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

We  should  see  that,  if  it  starts  in  the  morning 
with  clover,  it  visits  no  other  blossom  during  the 
day  but  clover  blossoms.  Or  if  it  begins  on  an 
orange  tree,  it  passes  the  cherries,  the  peaches,  the 
apples  and  anything  else  which  may  be  in  bloom, 
but  will  go  miles  to  find  orange  trees;  or  if  it  starts 
on  onions,  then  the  geraniums  and  the  carnations 
and  the  poppies  have  no  attraction  for  it. 

Which,  by  the  way,  is  the  reason  that  the  bees 
produce,  for  themselves  and  for  us,  clover  honey, 
and  orange  honey,  and  onion  honey,  each  with  a 
distinct  flavor  of  its  own. 

But  there  are  other  reasons  why  the  flowers  do 
not  get  mixed  up. 

One  is  that  while  some  flowers  advertise  to  the 
bees,  others  advertise  only  to  the  humming  birds 
— the  bees  can  not  get  into  the  bird  flowers  and 
the  birds  can  not  get  into  the  bee  flowers;  some 
flowers  open  in  the  early  morning,  and  some 
toward  noon;  some  bloom  in  April,  and  some  in 
July. 

The  pollen  granules  of  some  flowers  are  so 
large  that  they  can  not  push  their  tubes  down  into 
the  egg  nests  of  flowers  with  small  pistils;  there 
are  structural  differences  between  the  various 
families  of  plants  which  seem  to  make  cross 
pollenation  almost  impossible;  and  so  on  through 
a  wide  range  of  reasons  why  certain  plants  are 

[178] 


-l  a. 


s        re 

2.™  S 

Ci  re  3 
Srft."* 
*»  ~  ft 
©  3  - 

«    "1 


re   O 


<= «: 

"S  2.H 

i 

re   ©  31 

w 

a  <o  g- 

f— .  ^    --. 

ft 

«•«  a. 

re'  3*  EJ' 

v>  re 

e,   2. 

3  2. 

?3 

is?"3 


-  re  £ 

5   re  c 

a.  "a  re 


■  B3sa§ 
sis* 


2'  So 
a  a 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

not  readily  mated  with  others — which  will  lead 
us,  in  a  later  chapter,  into  the  interesting  study  of 

plant  affinities. 

***** 

The  bees  helped  us  to  make  a  pink  daisy 
because,  through  heredity,  the  daisies  of  our  first 
planting  gave  daisy  nectar,  though  their  colors 
were  white  and  orange.  And  in  seven  out  of  any 
ten  experiments  which  we  might  try,  we  could 
safely  entrust  the  work  of  pollenation  to  the  bees, 
or  birds,  or  other  messengers  with  whom  the 
plants  have  built  up  partnerships. 

But  in  those  other  three,  the  most  important 
of  the  ten,  perhaps,  we  should  find  that  the 
pollenation  would  have  to  be  done  by  hand. 

If,  for  example,  we  desired  to  effect  a  combina- 
tion between  two  flowers,  one  of  which  blooms  in 
the  spring  and  the  other  in  mid-summer,  the 
bees  could  be  of  no  service.  We  should  have  to 
take  the  pollen  of  the  early  blooming  flower  and 
carefully  save  it  until  it  could  be  applied  to  the 
other. 

If  we  desired  to  effect  a  combination  between 
a  bird  flower  and  a  bee  flower,  even  if  in  bloom 
at  the  same  time,  we  should  find  it  necessary  to 
attend  to  the  pollenation  ourselves. 

If  we  had  it  in  mind  to  effect  a  cross  between 
a  particularly  large,  insipid  plum  and  a  small, 

[180] 


ON  HURRYING  EVOLUTION 

highly  flavored  plum  on  another  tree,  or  if  we 
desired  to  effect  a  cross  between  any  two  selected 
parents,  we  should  find  it  necessary  to  do  our  own 
work  of  pollenation. 

***** 

It  would  seem  that  much  of  the  ingenuity 
evident  in  nature  is  directed  toward  a  two-fold 
end: 

First,  toward  producing  an  endless  combination 
of  heredities  in  plants  of  the  same  kind — which, 
to  give  them  a  name,  we  may  call  crosses. 

And  second,  to  prevent  the  combination  of 
things  out  of  kind — which,  to  distinguish  them 
from  crosses,  we  may  call  hybrids. 

The  first  aim  ensures  infinite  variation — the 
mixing  up  of  parallel  strains  of  heredity  in  such  a 
way  that  no  two  living  things  are  exactly  alike, 
and  that,  in  each  new  balance  of  tendencies  pro- 
duced, there  is  the  possibility  of  an  improvement. 

The  second  explains  why,  though  all  roses  differ 
from  each  other,  yet  all  are  roses — why,  though 
every  living  thing  has  its  own  individuality,  its 
own  personality,  each  bears  the  unmistakable 
characteristics  of  its  kind. 

***** 

"Here  and  there  through  nature,  nevertheless, 
are  hybrids.  Are  these  accidents — the  result  of 
some  carelessness,  some  lapse?" 

[181] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

"In  nature,"  said  Mr.  Burbank,  "there  are  no 
accidents,  no  lapses.  Everything  that  is,  is  a 
definite  part  of  the  Scheme  of  Things. 

"We  see  crossing  between  kinds  and  realize 
its  purpose,  and  see  its  value  in  the  Scheme, 
because  it  is  going  on  about  us  always,  everywhere 
— because  it  is  a  quick-moving  process  which  we 
can  observe  without  doubt  or  difficulty. 

"But  when,  on  the  other  hand,  we  see  the 
provisions  in  nature  against  crossing  out  of  kind, 
those  numberless  ingenious  devices  designed  to 
prevent  the  production  of  hybrids,  we  have  no 
right  to  conclude  that  hybrids  are  not  a  part  of 
the  Scheme  of  Things. 

"They  are — else  there  would  be  no  hybrids. 

"Crossing  between  things  of  the  same  kind  is 
a  continuous,  active  process  necessary  to  the 
production  of  better  and  better  individuals. 

"Crossing  out  of  kind  is  a  slower  process  which, 
I  believe,  has  just  as  definite  an  end  as  crossing 
within  kinds — excepting  that  its  object,  slowly  and 
surely  attained,  is  the  production  not  of  better 
individuals,  but  of  better  kinds." 
***** 

Let  us  go  back  to  our  African  daisies. 

If  we  read  their  histoiw  aright,  there  was, 
first,  an  orange  flower  which  grew  in  the  open 
veldt — a  flower  which  accommodated  itself  to  the 

[182] 


,  r.-T 


» ■ "  li 

53 

'"•■*3H 

^§ 

S33 

o   to   3  t1 

o^.^  e  g. 

^3  °"2 

3    3   a>  <»    rs 

~       a  S  n   = 

,On,-     S  "3 


S"  O 


5  S 
■5  « 


.  ©  © 

S    3 


© 

a 

■  s"  2  a    © 


o 
a. 
a 
o 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

peculiarities  of  the  soil  and  the  air  in  which  it 
grew,  and  to  its  plant,  insect,  and  animal  neighbors 
— so  that  it  became  a  thriving,  successful  race, 
each  generation  a  little  stronger — each  year  seeing 
it  increase  in  numbers  and  spread  in  territory. 
In  its  spread,  we  may  well  imagine  that  the 
winds,  or  the  animals,  carried  its  seed  over 
otherwise  impassable  barriers — just  as  human 
environment  carries  one  son  to  New  York  to 
become  a  lawyer,  another  to  Pittsburg  to  become 
a  steel  maker,  and  another  to  the  gold  fields  of 
Nevada. 

Thus  reaching  out,  always  into  new  environ- 
ments, some  branch  of  this  daisy  family  found 
itself  in  the  midst  of  a  clump  of  trees — trees  which 
multiplied  and  grew  till  they  obscured  the  sun 
and  left  the  tiny  plants  in  the  obscurity  of  dense 
shade. 

As  the  trees  grew  (and  just  as  slowly,  quite 
likely),  the  daisies  at  their  feet  accommodated 
themselves  to  their  new  environment  —  they 
adapted  themselves  to  the  shade  and  moisture — 
they  had  less  competition,  perhaps,  from  other 
small  plants  and  so  became  less  sturdy — they 
changed  their  color  to  the  one  best  suited  to 
attract  available  messengers  of  reproduction. 

At  this  point  we  interrupted  the  evolution  of 
the  African  daisy  by  planting  the  white  and  the 

[184] 


ON  HURRYING  EVOLUTION 

orange  together  and  securing,  in  the  pink  one,  an 
immediate  blend  of  their  divergent  heredities. 

But  it  requires  no  stretch  of  the  imagination 
to  believe  that,  had  we  left  them  to  their  course, 
the  same  end  would  have  been  accomplished  a 
century,  or  a  thousand  centuries,  from  now;  that 
the  same  migratory  tendency  which  took  the 
white  daisies  into  the  woods  would,  in  time,  have 
brought  them  out  of  the  woods  and  into  the 
sunshine;  or  that  the  same  tendency  which  got 
one  division  of  the  family  into  the  woods  would 
eventually  have  taken  other  divisions  to  the  same 
woods;  and  that,  sooner  or  later,  there  would  have 
been  white  daisies  growing  alongside  of  orange 
daisies,  so  that,  through  the  slow  processes  of 
nature,  the  same  result  which  we  produced  by 
artificial  means  would  have  been  achieved. 

And  so,  in  all  of  our  experiments  with  plants, 
we  shall  find  that  we  are  not  working  against 
evolution,  but  with  it;  that  we  are  merely  pro- 
viding it  with  short-cuts  into  the  centuries  to 
come — short-cuts  which  do  not  change  the  final 
result,  but  only  hasten  its  accomplishment. 

And  who  shall  say  that  we,  helping  our  plants 
to  do  in  1913  what  without  our  help  they  might  not 
be  able  to  do  before  3913 — who  shall  say  that  we 
are  not  elements  in  evolution  just  as  the  bees,  and 
the  birds,  and  the  butterflies,  and  the  winds,  and 

[185] 


■'-51° 


V5 

3 


tO 


•M  "^    to 


■5 


.S  2  3  «  * 
°V     38 

»  C,  ^  <u  « 
•«  j>  v>  =o  rf; 

(£8-2 


»>  o  > 

ft)         "-• 
O 

%>       s» 

"o'S 

•3.  «-S 

tt   to 

9)    B    ft) 

"       «0    "* 
_tO    ft)    ft, 


f3« 

Si  e  w 

*  £  2 

""    ft)  •" 


Ob's 

a  s  § 


*j  ;      ft)   •» 

,3   8    o    til  « 


O    ^  ft)    >3 

to*  §  SS^ 

«>  »>      ■£•*-«* 

KB^S,, 

•2  ft)  ^  -.E" 


ON   HURRYING   EVOLUTION 

the  rains,  and  the  frosts — who  shall  say  that 
our  influence,  inestimably  greater  than  any  other 
influence  in  the  life  of  a  plant — is  not  an  intended 
part  of  progress  in  the  Scheme  of  Things? 

***** 

In  hurrying  evolution,  we  can,  and  do,  play  a 
more  important  part,  even,  than  that  of  bringing 
about  crosses,  or  hybrids,  which  the  bees  or  the 
birds  would  never  make. 

The  greatest  service  which  we  render  toward 
the  advancement  of  plant  life  is  that  of  selection, 
endless,  skillful  selection. 

The  pink  daisy  was  really,  after  all,  the  result, 
principally,  of  selection.  The  important  thing  we 
did  was  not  to  bring  a  mass  of  daisies  together 
for  the  bees  to  work  on;  the  important  thing  was 
to  select  orange  daisies,  and  white  daisies,  with 
the  purpose  of  producing  a  pink  one.  Then,  with 
a  bedful  of  variations,  we  selected  again — selected, 
this  time,  for  the  shade  we  wanted,  and  destroyed 
the  rest. 

Afterward,  with  that  pink  daisy,  we  began 
a  still  further  course  of  selection,  selecting  the 
largest,  the  hardiest,  the  tallest;  and  no  matter 
how  long  we  might  continue  to  grow  pink  daisies, 
we  should  keep  on  selecting,  selecting,  selecting — 
each  step  in  our  selection,  because  it  has  the 
human  mind  behind  it— because  it  is  actuated  by 

[187] 


Some  Cactus  Seedlings — II 

After  making  his  first  selection  from  the  "flats,"  Mr.  Burbank 

transplants   his   seedlings   in    the  ground,  as   shown.     From   the 

time    the    seedling    first    shows    its    head    until    the    final    object    is 

achieved,    there    is    selection,    selection,    constant    selection.     The 

points  for  which  he  watches  in  his  process  of  selection  are 

clearly  explained  in  the  treatment  of  each  specific  subject. 


ON  HURRYING  EVOLUTION 

purpose  and  desire — each  step  in  this  selection 
representing  an  advance,  which,  without  our  help, 
might  take  a  hundred  or  a  thousand  years  to 
bring  about. 

So,  in  working  out  any  ideal  in  plant  improve- 
ment, the  first  factor  and  the  last  one  is  selection. 
Selection  enters  into  the  ideal  itself,  it  enters  into 
every  step  of  its  accomplishment,  and  it  enters 
into  the  production  of  every  succeeding  plant 
which  represents  that  accomplishment. 
***** 

"If  you  believe  that  nature  makes  no  mistakes, 
and  has  no  lapses,  how  can  you  account  for  the 
evident  unfitness  of  so  many  individual  plants 
to  survive  —  how  can  you  account  for  the 
wastefulness  and  extravagance  which  is  apparent 
throughout  all  forms  of  plant  life?" 

"Leaving  nature  out  of  it  for  the  moment," 
replied  Mr.  Burbank,  "let  us  look  at  the  work 
which  I  have  been  doing  here  for  forty  years. 
There  has  hardly  been  a  time  during  this  period 
when  I  have  had  less  than  twenty-five  hundred 
experiments  under  way,  and  there  have  been 
seasons  when  from  three  to  five  thousand  were  in 
process.  I  estimate  that,  right  on  this  three 
acre  tract,  considerably  more  than  one  hundred 
thousand  definite,  separate  experiments  in  plant 
life  have  been  conducted,  in  all. 

[189] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

"Some  of  the  experiments  which  have  taken 
the  most  time  and  cost  the  most  money  have 
produced  no  apparent  result;  and  some  of  the 
results  which  seem  most  important  have  been 
achieved  in  the  simplest  way,  with  the  least 
expenditure  of  effort. 

"Out  of  the  entire  total  of  experiments  tried, 
there  have  been  not  more  than  two  or  three 
thousand  which,  so  far,  have  resulted  in  a  better 
fruit,  or  a  better  flower,  or  a  more  marketable  nut, 
or  a  more  useful  plant. 

"On  the  other  hand,  I  should  feel  repaid  for  all 
the  work  I  have  done  if  only  a  dozen  of  my 
experiments  had  turned  out  to  be  successes.  It 
is  the  nature  of  experimentation — we  must  try 
many  things  in  order  to  accomplish  a  few. 

"And  this  is  just  exactly  what  is  going  on  in 
nature  all  the  time — excepting  that  where  we 
might  get  one  success  out  of  forty  failures,  there 
might  be  but  one  out  of  a  thousand  or  a  million 
if  the  plants  were  left  to  work  out  their  own 
improvement,  unaided. 

"Then,  after  all,  the  unsuccessful  experiments 
are  failures  only  in  a  comparative  sense. 

"If  you  have  ever  watched  the  bridge  builders 
constructing  a  concrete  causeway,  you  must  have 
seen  the  false  construction  which  was  necessary — 
the  stout  wooden  structure  into  which  the  plastic 

[190] 


Mr.  Burbank  at  Work 

In  the  foreground  of  this  print  it  will  be  seen  that  three 

of  the  flowers  are  separated  from  the  rest  by  being  tied  with 

white  string.     As  he  goes  about  his  gardens,  Mr.  Burbank  picks  out 

those  flowers  which  come  nearest  his  ideals  and  marks  them 

thus  that  their  seed  may  be  saved.    The  entire  process  of 

marking  and  recording  not  only  flowers  but  all  other 

plants  will  be  explained  in  the  proper  place. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

material  was  poured — a  costly  structure  in  itself 
which  was  put  up  only  to  be  torn  down. 

"We  can  not  call  this  wooden  structure  extrav- 
agance or  waste,  because  it  was  a  necessary  step 
in  the  completion  of  the  work.  And  so,  while, 
in  nature,  we  find  many  individuals  which  are 
weak — many  steps  which  look  like  backward 
steps  instead  of  forward  ones — many  apparent 
oversights,  yet  I  prefer  to  believe,  and  my  own 
work  has  shown  me  that  this  is  true,  that  these 
are  simply  elements  in  a  necessary  scheme  of 
false  construction,  without  which  the  final  object 
could  not  be  achieved. 

"The  price  of  all  progress  is  experiment;  suc- 
cessful experiment  is  brought  about,  always,  at 
a  terrific  expense  of  individual  failures. 

"But  who  shall  say  that  progress,  any  progress, 
is  not  worth  all  it  costs?" 

***** 

Nature  gets  one  success  out  of  a  million  tries; 
Mr.  Burbank  has  gotten  one  out  of  forty.  The 
figures  may  not  be  exact,  but  the  basic  fact 
underlying  them  is  none  the  less  important. 

It  was  simply  by  eliminating  steps  and  pro- 
viding short-cuts,  and  bringing  the  human  mind 
with  its  ideals,  will,  judgment  and  persistence  into 
the  environment  of  the  African  daisy  that  we  were 
able  to  produce  a  pink  one  in  a  few  months  when, 

[192] 


ON  HURRYING  EVOLUTION 

without  our  influence,  nature  might  easily  have 

taken  till  3913. 

***** 

The  real  work  before  us,  then,  is  to  study 
nature's  processes — to  learn  to  read  the  history 
of  plants,  to  uncover  tendencies  and  understand 
their  trends — and  then  to  provide  short-cuts  so 
that  the  far  distant  improvement  may  be  made 
a  matter  of  months,  instead  of  centuries. 

These  short-cuts,  and  their  application,  from 
this  point  on,  will  be  our  principal  study;  perhaps 
a  single  illustration  here,  more  comprehensive 
than  that  of  the  daisy,  will  serve  to  give  a  clearer 
idea  of  their  kind: 

Let  us  take,  then,  as  a  specimen,  Mr.  Burbank's 
methods  in  the  production  of  a  new  cherry. 

First,  as  with  the  daisy,  there  must  be  an  ideal 
— some  particular  kind  of  cherry  of  which  we 
have  made  a  mental  blue  print.  Let  us  say  that 
our  blue  print  calls  for  a  large,  sweet  cherry, 
which  will  ripen  early  and  bear  long — an  eating 
cherry  rather  than  a  canning  cherry,  so  that 
appearance  is  a  great  factor. 

The  first  step  would  be  to  gather  in  our 
elements;  to  pick  out  a  large,  beautiful  cherry 
which,  after  the  manner  of  many  large,  beautiful 
fruits,  may  be  more  or  less  insipid  in  taste;  then  to 
select  another  cherry,  size  and  appearance  incon- 

[193] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

sequential,   which   has   the   delightful   flavor   our 
plans  and  specifications  call  for. 

Let  us  take  not  one  of  each  of  these  types,  but 
a  number  of  them,  and  then  when  they  have 
bloomed,  let  us,  by  hand,  cross  them  back  and 
forth,  making  in  all,  we  will  say,  five  hundred 
crosses;  each  tied  with  a  certain  color  of  string 
for  the  purpose  of  later  identification. 

The  petals  of  the  blossoms  which  we  have 
crossed  will  fall  away;  long  stems  bearing  green 
cherries  will  begin  to  take  their  place;  and  finally, 
the  twigs  which  we  have  marked  with  strings  will 
tempt  us  with  their  ripened  fruit. 
***** 

There  is  an  interesting  legend  of  the  French 
girls  who  used  to  take  apple  boughs  in  blossom 
and  shake  the  pollen  over  the  apple  flowers  of 
another  tree,  a  legend  of  the  wonderful  variation 
in  the  apples  which  they  secured. 

And  here  and  there  in  our  work  we  shall  see 
exceptions  to  the  general  rule,  which  seem  to 
prove  that  the  French  legend  perhaps  was  founded 
on  fact. 

These  exceptions,  which  will  form  the  basis  of 
an  interesting  series  of  experiments  for  us  later, 
need  have  no  bearing  on  our  present  cherry  work. 

For,  as  a  matter  of  practical  fact,  we  shall 
find    no    outward    evidence    of    our    work.      The 

[194] 


ON  HURRYING  EVOLUTION 

meat  of  the  five  hundred  cherries  which  we  have 
crossed,  we  can  safely  assume,  will  taste  the  same, 
and  be  the  same,  as  though  we  had  let  the  bees 
attend  to  pollenation;  the  cherries  that  result  will 
be  no  different  in  flavor  or  appearance  than  the 
other  cherries  on  the  tree. 

But  inside  the  stony  seed  of  each  of  those 
cherries  we  shall  find  an  indelible  living  record 
of  what  we  have  done. 

So,   disregarding   the  fruit,   we   save   our  five 
hundred  cherry  seeds  and  plant  them  in  a  shallow 
box  until  they  have  sprouted  and  then  transplant 
them  till  they  attain  a  six  or  eight  inch  growth. 
***** 

So  far,  let  us  see  how  we  have  shortened 
nature's  processes. 

In  the  first  place,  we  have  brought  together  a 
large,  insipid  cherry  and  a  homely,  small,  sweet 
one,  brought  them  from  points,  perhaps,  two 
thousand  miles  apart. 

In  the  natural  course,  those  two  cherries  would 
have  spread;  they  would,  eventually,  have  come 
together,  no  doubt;  but  we  have  brought  them 
together  without  delay.  Perhaps,  in  this,  we  have 
saved  a  thousand  years. 

In  bringing  our  two  kinds  of  cherries  together 
we  have  brought  not  only  one  of  each  type,  but 
dozens,  or  hundreds,   each   selected  for  its  size, 

[195] 


e  a  o 
a.  £3 


c  o: 


3 


0      b  5>  §  "S  r   .  *,  S 

Z  e  « •»;  « 


>•     aio 


-^   f,   o 

, OS 

•~  •*.  c  ») 


ON  HURRYING  EVOLUTION 

or  appearance,  or  some  probable  quality  which 
it  contains  within.  In  this  simple  selection  of 
individuals  we  may  have  saved  other  thousands 
of  years. 

With  unerring  accuracy  we  have  seen  that  the 
pollen  of  the  two  kinds  has  been  interchanged,  so 
that  the  five  hundred  or  so  resulting  seeds  wrill 
represent  the  two  heredities  we  wish  to  mix — and 
only  these. 

Who  can  estimate  how  long  it  might  have 
taken  the  bees  and  the  winds,  working  even  in 
neighboring  trees,  to  effect  specific  crosses  with 
the  certainty  which  we  have  assured? 

Now,  with  new  heredities  bundled  up  in  our 
five  hundred  cherry  stones,  we  plant  them  under 
every  favoring  condition  in  our  shallow  box,  and 
unless  mishap  or  accident  intervenes,  we  get  new 
cherry  trees  from  all,  or,  at  worst,  lose  but  a  few. 

From  five  hundred  other  cherries  on  a  tree, 
leaving  the  birds  to  distribute  the  seed,  how  many 
seedlings  will  there  sprout? 

***** 

And  now,  with  our  sprouted  cherry  seedlings 
six  inches  or  eight  in  height,  with  no  man  knows 
how  many  thousand  years  of  nature's  processes 
cut  out,  we  come  to  the  most  important  short-cut 
of  all — quick  fruiting,  so  that  there  may  be  quick 
selection. 

[197] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

Grafting  is  no  new  practice. 
Virgil  wrote  verses  about  it: 

But  thou  shalt  lend 
Grafts  of  rude  arbute  unto  the  walnut  tree, 
Shalt  bid  the  unfruitful  plane  sound  apples  bear, 
Chestnuts  the  beech,  the  ash  blow  white  with  the 

pear, 
And,  under  the  elm,  the  sow  on  acorns  fare. 

Pliny,  within  the  same  century,  describes  a  cleft 
graft  and  bespeaks  the  following  precautions: 
that  the  stock  must  be  that  of  a  tree  suitable  for 
the  purpose;  that  the  cleft  must  be  taken  from 
one  that  is  proper  for  grafting;  that  the  incision 
must  not  be  made  in  a  knot;  that  the  graft  must 
be  from  a  tree  which  is  a  good  bearer,  and 
from  a  young  shoot;  that  the  graft  must  not  be 
sharpened  or  pointed  while  the  wind  is  blowing; 
that  the  graft  should  be  inserted  during  the  moon's 
increase;  with  the  final  warning,  "A  graft  should 
not  be  used  that  is  too  full  of  sap,  no,  by  Hercules ! 

no  more  than  one  that  is  dry  and  parched." 

***** 

"Graft  close  down  to  the  trunk,"  the  later 
theory  of  grafting  has  been,  "there  the  sap 
pressure  is  highest  and  the  grafted  cion  has  the 
best  opportunity  to  live. 

"Graft  away  out  at  the  tip  ends  of  the  tree," 
thought  Luther  Burbank,  "and  you  will  save  from 
two  to  seven  years  of  time." 

[198]        ' 


ON  HURRYING  EVOLUTION 

It  was  the  same  kind  of  observation  as  that 
which  led  to  the  production  of  a  spineless  cactus; 
the  same  keen  eye  for  cause  and  effect  which 
showed  Luther  Burbank  a  new  theory  of  grafting 
— which   opened   the   way   to    a   practice   which 

makes  possible,  comparatively,  immediate  results. 

***** 

Grafting  close  to  the  trunk  gives  the  cion  a 
better  chance. 

"Give  anything  a  good  chance,"  thought  Mr. 
Burbank,  "and  it  takes  its  own  time  to  mature. 

"Take  away  that  chance,  and  responding  to 
the  inborn  tendency  of  every  living  thing  to 
reproduce  itself,  it  will  hasten  the  process  without 
waiting  to  accumulate  strength.  Therefore,  if  we 
graft  away  out  at  the  tip  ends  of  the  tree,  while 
we  make  it  harder  for  the  cions  to  exist,  yet,  in 
consequence,  they  will  bear  us  quicker  fruit. 

"Furthermore,  if  we  graft  close  to  the  trunk 
we  can,  at  best,  attach  but  six,  or  eight,  or  a 
dozen  cions. 

"But  if  we  graft  out  at  the  tip  ends,  we  can  put 
five  hundred  cions  on  a  single  tree." 
***** 

Grafting  was  nothing  new;  but  it  remained  for 
Luther  Burbank  to  learn  the  secret  of  producing, 
by  means  of  it,  five  hundred  different  kinds  of 
fruit  on  a  single  tree  at  the  same  time,  so  that  a 

[199] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

comparative  test  might  be  made.  It  remained  for 
Luther  Burbank,  with  his  theory  of  starving  a 
living  thing  to  make  it  hasten  its  reproduction,  to 
cut  from  two  to  seven  years  out  of  the  long  wait 
for  the  fruit  which  is  to  tell  the  story  of  the 
heredities  which  were  confined  within  the  seed. 

It  is  possible,  at  this  point,  to  give  but  the 
barest  glimpse  of  the  results  which  Mr.  Burbank's 
improvements  in  grafting  have  made  possible. 
Under  the  proper  heading  the  details  of  method 
will  be  fully  explained,  together  with  a  summary 
of  the  results  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  grafts, 
showing  that,  while  the  average  time  of  fruiting 
has  been  brought  down  to  less  than  two  seasons, 
in  some  exceptional  cases  Mr.  Burbank  has 
secured  fruit  for  testing  the  same  season  that  the 
graft  was  made. 

Here,  too,  it  is  not  possible  to  convey  more 
than  a  general  idea  of  his  plans  which,  in  every 
operation,  are  aimed  toward  the  end  of  producing 
the  quickest  possible  test.  Whether  it  be  the 
quince  seedlings  bearing  fruit  in  six  months;  or 
three-foot  chestnut  trees  loaded  down  with  nuts; 
or  twelve  year  old  walnut  trees,  the  size  of  their 
seventy  year  old  cousins — all  through  this  work 
the  plan  and  the  method  is  to  save  time  for  the 
individual  plant  as  well  as  to  provide  short-cuts 
for  the  process  of  evolution. 

[200] 


An  Apple  Graft  One  Year  Old 

As  evidence  of  the  success  of  Mr.  Burbank's  methods 

of  producing  quick  results,  the  apple  graft,  in  full  bearing,  after  only 

one  year's  growth,  speaks  eloquently. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

To  go  back  to  our  cherry  seedling,  now  six 
inches  above  the  ground,  if  we  were  to  depend 
on  nature's  processes,  by  careful  planting  and 
cultivation  we  might  produce  cherries  in  seven 
years;  but  by  short-cutting  through  grafting,  and 
short-cutting  grafting  itself  through  Mr.  Burbank's 
plan,  we  shall  have  our  cherry  crosses  in  1914 
instead  of  in  1920— five  hundred  of  them  all  on 
a  single  tree,  so  that  they  can  be  plucked  and 
laid  out,  first,  for  a  visual  selection,  to  pick  out 
the  ones  which  conform  to  our  ideas  of  color, 
and  size,  and  beauty;  and,  second,  for  selection 
through  taste — to  find  the  one,  or  the  two,  or  the 
dozen  among  them  which  come  nearest  the  ideal 
of  our  original  mental  blue  print. 

Perhaps  of  the  five  hundred  cherries  spread 
before  us,  none  may  fit  the  blue  print;  or  perhaps 
one  or  two,  approximating  it,  may  show  signs  of 
further  improvements  which  ought  to  be  made. 

Eliminate  the  rest,  and  start  afresh  with 
those  two — begin  at  the  very  beginning  with  them 
again — mix  up  their  heredities  with  other 
desirable  heredities  from  near  or  far,  grow  seed- 
lings, produce  quick  fruit  through  grafting,  and 

select  again. 

***** 

Every  little  bit  Mr.  Burbank  has,  as  the  neigh- 
bors choose  to  call  it,  a  $10,000  bonfire. 

[202] 


A  Chestnut  Graft  One  Year  Old 

One  year  before  this  picture  was  taken  the  heavily  laden 

branch  of  chestnuts  seen  above  was  a  seedling  with  its  possibilities 

unknown.    In  the  brief  span  of  twelve  months  Mr.  Burbank 

has  now  before  him   the  chestnuts  which  are  to 

be  the  proof  of  the  success  or  failure 

of  his  experiment. 


A  Burbank  Bonfire 

The  photograph   print  here   is  remarkable   in   that   it   is  made 

from   a   color   photograph    taken   at   night   of   one    of   Mr.   Burbank  s 

so-called   $10,000    bonfires.     Such   a   photograph    in    even    black 

and  white  would  be  extremely  difficult  of  accomplishment. 


ON  HURRYING  EVOLUTION 

In  such  a  bonfire  there  would  be  499  cherry 
grafts  out  of  the  five  hundred  which  we  have  just 
made;  there  would  be  19.999  rose  bushes  which 
had  been  brought  to  bearing  in  order  to  find  the 
twenty  thousandth  which  was  not  burned — or 
perhaps  twenty  thousand  rose  bushes,  the  one 
sought  for  not  having  been  worth  the  saving; 
there  would  be  1,500  gladiolus  bulbs  with  an  easy 
market  value  of  a  dollar  a  piece,  put  in  the  fire 
after  the  one,  or  the  two,  or  the  dozen  best  among 
them  had  been  selected;  there  would  be  a 
thousand  cactus  seedlings,  representing  three 
years  of  care  and  watchfulness,  but  useless  now, 
their  duty  done.  A  ten  thousand  dollar  bonfire, 
indeed,  without  exaggeration. 

The  builder  of  bridges  can  sell  the  lumber  used 
in  his  false  construction  for  seconds;  and  so, 
too,  could  Mr.  Burbank  profitably  dispose  of  the 
elements  of  false  construction  in  his  work — those 
millions  of  seeds  and  bulbs  and  cuttings  which 
represent  second  bests  or  poorer;  but  he  does 
not;  every  step  in  the  process  excepting  those 
concerning  the  final  result  is  obliterated  with  a 
ruthless  hand. 

"It  is  better,"  says  Mr.  Burbank,  "to  run  the 
risk  of  losing  a  perfected  product,  through  the 
destruction  of  the  elements  which  went  into  it, 
than  to  issue  forth  to  the  world  a  lot  of  second 

[205] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

bests  which  have  within  them  the  power  of  self 
perpetuation  and  multiplication,  and  which,  if  we 
do  not  destroy  them  now,  will  clutter  the  earth 
with  inferiority  or  with  mediocrity." 

So,  we  see  that,  while  nature  eventually  would 
produce  the  things  which  we  hurry  her  to  produce, 
yet  the  improvements  would  find  themselves  in 
competition  with  the  failures  which  they  cost,  the 
failures  outnumbering  the  improvements,  perhaps, 
a  million  to  one.  We  see  that  we  not  only  shorten 
the  process,  not  only  achieve  a  result  out  of  every 
forty  failures  instead  of  every  million,  but  we  give 
our  product  the  advantage  of  a  better  chance  to 
live — we  remove  from  it  the  necessity  of  fighting 
its  inferiors  for  the  food,  and  air,  and  sunlight 

which  give  it  life. 

***** 

This,  then,  is  the  story  of  the  making  of  a  new 
cherry  to  fit  an  ideal: 

First,  selection  of  the  elements;  second,  com- 
bining these  elements;  third,  bringing  these  com- 
binations to  quick  bearing;  fourth,  selecting  one 
out  of  the  five  hundred;  and  then,  selection,  on 
and  on. 

Interesting  and  wonderful  as  the  process  of 
pollenation  is,  ingenious  and  successful  as  Mr. 
Burbank's  method  of  grafting  is,  important  and 
highly  perfected  as  his  methods  of  growing  and 

[206] 


- 


__' 


*2KL 


I 

-"     ' 

'  SIS 

- 

_   !  ■      .  •    .  ^    • .  ■    -  -  -    *k^£ 

...  wfjfc^^M&L 


One  of  Mr.  Burbank's  Records 

This  page  from  one  of  Mr.  Burbank's  record  books  gives 

an  indication  of  the  careful,  painstaking  manner  in  which  he 

has  recorded  all   of  his   experiments.      With   seeds,   bulbs  and   slips 

coming  to  him  continually  from  all  over  the  world;  and  with 

more  than  forty  years  of  work  recorded,  these  books 

form    now    a   large   and    interesting    library. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

caring  for  seedlings  are — these,  after  all,  are  but 
details  in  the  process — minor  details,  in  fact. 

The  big  element,  over-towering  them  in  im- 
portance, is  selection. 

First,  the  selection  of  an  ideal,  then  the 
selection  of  the  elements  which  are  to  be  blended 
to  achieve  it,  then  the  selection  of  the  resultant 
plant,  and  after  that  the  selection  of  better  and 
better  individual  plants  to  bear  the  fruit  which 

reproduces  the  original  selected  ideal. 

***** 

Everything  we  do,  then,  is  simply  done  to 
facilitate  selection. 

We  produce  new  plants  in  enormous  quan- 
tities, in  order  that  there  may  be  many  from  which 
to  select;  and  having  selected,  we  destroy  nine 
hundred  and  ninety-nine  one  thousandths  of  our 
work. 

We  strive  all  the  while  to  produce  quick 
results — to  eliminate  the  long  waits  and  to  shorten 
those  that  we  can  not  wholly  eliminate — simply  so 
that  our  selection  may  be  truly  comparative — as 
that  of  five  hundred  fruits  tasted  in  a  single  after- 
noon, and  so  that  lingering  expectancy  may  not 

prejudice  our  judgment,  or  the  result. 

***** 

It  took  two  thousand  years  to  bring  about  the 
juicy  American  pear  by  unconscious  selection — 

[208] 


^  ="  a  a  • 


~  E-  o   ^  _   a,  rj 

•-  .a1  a  a  q  ftp 
•    5  2.ts  3  s- 
=  £  a  ft  ~-3- 

**  °  »  ~.  3   ~. 


f>, 


35" 


This    dir 

holograph 
.    Burbank 
irru    tree 

3 

15 

&3 

ect    co 
print  s 
's    f  a 
on    wh 

O 

a- 

a- 

5,8  « 

0> 

<%  w 

c* 

LUTHER   BURBANK 

and  two  thousand  years  for  the  Orientals  to 
produce  the  pear  they  liked. 

Yet,  as  plant  improvement  goes,  the  pear 
was  quick  to  respond  to  its  environment;  other 
fruit  improvements  wrought  through  unconscious 
selection  have  taken  ten  times  as  long. 

On  the  other  hand  we  see  Luther  Burbank's 
cherry  tree,  bearing  more  than  five  hundred  dif- 
ferent kinds  of  cherries  at  the  same  time,  cherries 
produced  to  compare  with  a  mental  blue  print 
less  than  three  years  old — cherries,  from  among 
which,  one,  at  least,  will  be  found,  which  will 
lead  the  way  to  the  achievement  of  the  ideal. 

And,  similarly,  in  every  department  of  plant 
life,  whether  it  be  in  farm  plants,  or  garden 
plants,  or  forest  plants,  or  lawn  plants,  or  orchard 
plants,  or  whether  it  be  in  plants  which  we  grow 
for  their  chemical  content,  or  for  their  fibers,  or 
what — we  shall  find  that  it  is  possible  to  devise 
short-cuts  into  the  centuries  to  come,  and  through 
combining  stored  up  heredity  with  new  environ- 
ment, to  hurry  evolution  to  produce  for  us  entirely 
new  plants  to  meet  our  specific  desires. 


— Who  shall  say  that  progress,  any 
progress,  is  not  worth  all  it  costs? 


How  Far  Can  Plant 
Improvement  Go? 

The  Crossroads — Where  Fact 
and  Theory  Seem  to  Part 


WHEN  I  first  began  this  work,"  said 
Mr.  Burbank,  "I  was  taught  that  a 
combination  between  two  varieties  of 
the  same  species  was  possible — that  I  might  cross 
one  plum  with  another  plum,  for  example,  to  get 
a  new  variety — but  that  the  species  marked  the 
definite  boundary  within  which  I  might  work. 
The  science  of  that  day  was  firm  in  its  belief  that 
a  seed-bearing,  self-reproductive  cross  between 
plants  of  different  species  was  beyond  the  pale  of 
possibility. 

"A  little  later  on,  when  I  succeeded  in  com- 
bining the  plum  with  the  apricot,  and  produced, 
thereby,  a  new  fruit  whose  parents  were  of 
undeniably  different  species,  the  law,  or  rule,  was 
moved  up  a  peg;  and  I  was  told  that  while  it 
might  be  possible  to  effect  combinations  between 
different  species,  yet  that  must  be  the  limit  of 

[Volume  I — Chapter  VII] 


03 


~  w  •> 

SSbo 
5  £"-£ 
t,  o  c  « 

©<:  a  *;  <u 

°       .S     I*-- 

5  •-  <  «  »  « ' 
a, 


.2  S  ~     .2 


c  -5  .- 1  -S 


a.~ 


"1. 


•£  .2 


=  2 

«  a    . 
'S  °  "" 

B 

.•a  g 

o  a  w 
•S  _«)  .a 

"5  ~  b, 

3    ^    «> 


~  =  3C 


C  e   « 


-  =>  h  a  b  S  S  •- 
~ca.»t,*>o,a- 


ON  FACT  VS.  THEORY 

accomplishment;  that  combinations  between  the 
next  higher  divisions,  genera,  were  beyond  the 
power  of  man  to  effect. 

"Then,  when  I  was  able,  after  a  time,  to  take 
parents  of  two  different  genera,  like  the  crinum 
and  the  amaryllis,  or  the  peach  and  the  almond,  or 
a  score  of  others  which  might  be  mentioned,  and 
to  effect  successful  seed-producing  combinations 
between  them,  I  began  to  hear  less  and  less  about 
laws  and  rules. 

"The  fact  is  that  the  laws  and  the  rules  are  all 
man-made. 

"Nature,  herself,  has  no  hard  and  fast  mode  of 
procedure.  She  limits  herself  to  no  grooves.  She 
travels  to  no  set  schedule. 

She  proceeds  an  inch  at  a  time — or  a  league — 
moving  forward,  always,  but  into  an  unmapped, 
uncharted,  trackless  future. 

"I  like  to  think  of  Nature's  processes  as  end- 
lessly flowing  streams;  streams  in  which  varied 
strains  of  heredity  are  ever  pouring  down  through 
river  beds  of  environment;  streams  which,  for 
ages,  may  keep  to  their  channels,  but  each  of 
which  is  apt,  at  any  time,  to  jump  its  banks  and 
find  a  different  outlet. 

"Just  about  the  time  we  decide  that  one  of 
these  streams  is  fixed  and  permanent,  there  is 
likely  to  come  along  a  freshet  of  old  heredity,  or 

[2131 


The  Amaryllis  and  Its  Parents 

Having  effected  a  combination  between  species,  Mr.  Burbank, 
the    amaryllis,    made    a    combination    between    genera.       In    this 
direct  color  photograph  print  the  improved  amaryllis  and 
its  tiny  parents  are  shown  in  truthful  proportion. 


3S> 

2  s  »  &  •   * 
c-~-s     a  a 

»  a  o  i.o'^B 
_  ~  g  ~. re  a-  a 
a  <*  re      o 


as  a  a  as 
=>  a  o  ~ 

3^a^S? 
re,  5  b  a  a 


H  ft  Cfl 


S  ~      re  a.  ^ 

•  g's-3  S'g> 

a  o     as  g  o 
w  a  -»  «-£  ° 

a,  3  re 
2  5"S" 


Sasa- 


a  2 


re  3       «"      <q 

~=S§*re 


re  >a  B 


re 


2  a  c      re 
a  a.  n  m' 


2 
•a 

o 

G 

a. 


3 

ft 

2 
a 

«3 


ON  FACT  VS.  THEORY 

a  shift  in  new  environment;  after  which  we  must 

rebuild  our  bridges  and  revise  all  our  maps." 

***** 

Since  the  subject  of  classification  is  an  impor- 
tant one;  and  since  Mr.  Burbank  upsets  some 
man-made  law  or  theory  on  an  average  of  about 
once  in  every  sixty  days,  it  may  be  well,  at  this 
point,  to  take  a  bird's-eye  glimpse  over  the  maps 
and  charts  which  have  been  worked  out. 

With  a  subject  in  which  the  bulk  of  truth  is 
masked  in  the  obscurity  of  past  ages,  and  with 
many  men  of  many  minds  attacking  it  from  many 
viewpoints,  it  is  only  to  be  expected  that  there 
should  be  differences  of  opinion. 

But,  for  the  sake  of  making  the  explanation 
clear,  we  may,  for  the  moment,  overlook  minor 
divergences  and  view,  only,  the  main  backbone 
plan  which  meets  with  the  broadest  acceptance. 

To  begin  at  the  beginning,  we  see,  first, 
spread  before  us,  three  kingdoms,  whose  boundary 
lines  are  well  surveyed,  and  whose  extent  is 
all-inclusive.  These,  as  our  Duffy's  second  reader 
told  us,  are  the  mineral,  the  animal,  and  the 
vegetable  kingdoms. 

Our  interest  lies  now  in  the  vegetable  kingdom, 
which  divides  itself  into  six  (perhaps  seven) 
branches,  or  subkingdoms,  called  phyla. 

The    lowest    of    these    subkingdoms    includes 

[217] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

only  those  vegetables  of  the  simplest  type  which 
reproduce  by  splitting  themselves  in  two.  In 
this  subkingdom  live  the  death-dealing  bacteria, 
which  bring  about  such  human  diseases  as  tuber- 
culosis and  malaria,  or  such  plant  diseases  as 
black  rot;  and  the  good  bacteria,  too,  which  are 
everywhere,  helping  us  to  digest  our  food,  and 
without  whose  help  the  higher  subkingdoms  of 
plant  life  could  not  exist;  and  other  plants  of  the 
same  grade. 

The  next  subkingdom,  higher  by  a  step,  includes 
the  yeast  which  we  use  to  raise  our  bread,  or  those 
microscopic  vegetables  which  turn  hop  juice  into 
beer,  apple  juice  into  cider  and  rye  juice  into 
whisky;  and  others.  Those  who  prefer  to  chart 
seven  subkingdoms  instead  of  six,  divide  this 
branch  into  two,  making  the  slime-molds  a 
separate  phylum. 

The  next  subkingdom,  ascending  the  scale, 
includes,  among  others,  the  mosses  and  liverworts. 

From  these  it  is  but  a  step  to  the  next  sub- 
kingdom,  which  includes  the  ferns — the  highest 
type  of  flowerless  plants,  and  the  first,  in  the 
ascending  scale,  to  exhibit  a  complete  development 
of  root,  stem  and  leaf. 

The  final  subkingdom,  and  the  one  into  which 
our  work  principally  takes  us,  embraces  those 
plants  which  produce  seeds. 

[218] 


ON  FACT  VS.  THEORY 

Taking,  then,  this  latter,  the  highest  sub- 
kingdom,  we  find  that  it  separates  into  two  broad 
divisions,  called  classes,  one  of  which  is  distin- 
guished by  bearing  its  seeds  in  enclosed  packages 
called  ovaries;  the  other  bearing  seeds  which  are 
exposed,  or  naked.  The  first  of  these  classes 
includes  the  vast  majority  of  seed-bearing  plants; 
the  other  including  principally  those  trees,  like 
the  pine  and  the  cypress,  which  bear  their  seeds 
in  open  cones. 

Next,  on  our  chart,  we  shall  find  that  the  class 
is  subdivided  into  orders.  The  order  represents 
a  collection  of  related  families.  As  an  example, 
the  order  Rosales  is  made  up  of  the  rose  family, 
the  bean  family,  the  cassia  family,  the  mimosa 
family  and  twelve  other  families  closely  allied. 

Below  the  order  comes  the  family — a  division 
which  is  still  broadly  inclusive;  the  rose  family 
for  example  taking  in  not  only  the  rose,  itself, 
but  the  apple,  the  blackberry  and  sixty-two  other 
plants  whose  close  relationship  might  not  at  first 
be  evident. 

From  the  family  we  next  narrow  down  to  the 
genus — which  separates  the  rose  from  the  apple 
and  the  blackberry  and  gives  each  its  own  classi- 
fication. 

Beneath  the  genus  there  comes  the  species. 

And  beneath  the  species  the  variety. 
[219] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

We  may  take  it  as  a  safe  observation  that  the 
simpler  the  form  of  life,  the  less  the  tendency 
toward  variation;  the  more  complex,  the  greater 
the  opportunity  for  individual  differences. 

So,  in  the  simpler  subkingdoms,  and  in  the 
more  general  divisions  down  to  and  including  the 
order,  the  lines  of  division  are  more  readily 
differentiated,  and  the  work  of  classification  has 
been  fairly  free  from  quarrels. 

But  as  the  order  breaks  up  into  families,  and 
the  family  breaks  up  into  genera,  and  the  genus 
breaks  up  into  species,  and  the  species  breaks  up 
into  varieties,  and  variations  tend  more  and  more 
to  carry  the  individual  away  from  its  kind,  there 
are  to  be  found  dissentions  and  differences  of 
opinion    which    could    hardly    be    chronicled    in 

twelve  full  volumes  of  this  size. 

***** 

Nor  is  this  divergent  opinion  surprising. 

It  is  said  that,  of  an  iceberg  floating  in  the  sea, 
but  one-eighth  is  visible  to  the  surface  observer, 
while  seven-eighths  of  the  mass  are  submerged 
beneath  the  water  line. 

Who,  from  looking  at  the  one-eighth  in  view, 
could  be  expected  to  draw  an  accurate  detail 
picture  of  the  iceberg  as  a  whole? 

The  vegetable  kingdom  which  presents  itself 
to  our  vision  today  has  been  under  observation, 

[220] 


ON  FACT  VS.  THEORY 

at  most,  but  a  few  hundred  years.  It  has  behind 
it,  who  shall  say,  how  many  tens  of  thousands  of 
generations  of  ancestry  which,  coming  before 
man,  went  by  unobserved — yet  which,  under  new 
environment,  are  continually  bursting  forth  to 
confuse  us. 

How  can  man,  with  only  one  ten-thousandth 
of  his  subject  revealed  to  him,  be  expected  to  make 
charts  or  maps  which  shall  withstand  onslaught, 

or  be  superior  to  criticism? 

***** 

For  the  sake  of  ready  understanding,  we  may, 
however,  summarize  plant  life  into  the  broad 
classifications  outlined  above. 

First,  the  vegetable  kingdom,  which  includes 
all  plants. 

Second,  the  subkingdom  or  phyla,  six  or  seven 
in  number. 

Third,  the  class,  which  ranks  above  an  order 
and  below  a  phylum. 

Fourth,  the  order,  which  ranks  between  the 
class  and  the  family. 

Fifth,  the  family,  which  ranks  below  an  order 
but  above  the  genus. 

Sixth,  the  genus,  which  ranks  below  a  family 
but  above  the  species. 

Seventh,  the  species,  which  ranks  below  a 
genus  and  above  the  variety. 

[221] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

Eighth,  the  variety,  which  ranks  below  a  species 
and  above  the  individual. 

Yet  with  but  one  certainty  in  the  entire  scheme 
of  classification — that  certainty  being  the  indi- 
vidual, itself. 

Men  may  tell  us  that  a  plant  belongs  to  one 
genus  or  to  another,  that  it  is  of  this  species,  or 
of  that — or  that  it  is  even  of  a  different  family 
than  at  first  we  thought — but  these,  after  all,  are 
but  theories,  built  up  about  the  plant  by  man — 
theories  which  serve  merely  as  guide  posts  in  our 
work. 

The  plant  itself,  the  individual  plant,  if  we  but 
watch  it  and  give  it  an  opportunity  to  show,  will 
tell  us  for  itself,  beyond  dispute  or  denial,  just 
what  manner  of  plant  it  is — just  what  we  may 
hope  for  it  to  do. 

***** 

Next  in  importance  to  classifying  plants,  from 
a  superficial  standpoint,  is  a  method  of  naming 
them. 

When  we  go  to  the  florist's  we  ask  for  roses, 
or  marigolds;  when  we  go  to  the  fruiterer's  we 
talk  to  him  of  oranges,  and  plums,  and  cherries; 
when  we  go  to  the  green  grocer  we  ask  for  lettuce, 
or  cabbage,  or  peas;  when  we  select  furniture  we 
talk  of  it  as  being  made  of  mahogany,  or  oak,  or 
walnut. 

[222] 


ON  FACT  VS.  THEORY 

Thus,  commonly,  we  call  all  forms  of  plant 
life  by  their  nicknames — and  by  their  nicknames 
only  do  most  of  us  know  them. 

One  reason,  likely  enough,  is  that  the  scientific 
names  of  plants  are  in  Latin — for  the  good  reason 
that  the  Russian,  or  Swedish,  or  Spanish,  or 
American  scientist  is  able  to  describe  his  work, 
thus,  in  a  common  language. 

In  giving  a  plant  its  Latin  name,  no  attention 
is  paid  to  its  class,  order  or  family. 

The  name  of  the  genus  becomes  its  first  name. 

The  name  of  the  species  follows. 

And  the  name  of  the  variety,  when  given,  comes 
last. 

Thus,  in  writing  the  scientific  name  for  an 
apricot,  or  a  plum,  or  a  cherry,  we  should  give 
first  the  name  of  the  genus,  which,  for  all  of  these, 
is  Primus. 

If  we  are  to  describe,  for  instance,  a  cherry  of 
the  species  Avium,  we  should  write,  following  the 
name  of  the  genus,  the  name  of  the  species,  as 
Prunus  Avium. 

And  then,  if  we  were  to  write  the  name  of  some 
particular  improvement  in  that  species  of  cherry 
which  Mr.  Burbank  had  wrought,  say  the  famous 
Burbank  cherry,  we  should  follow  the  names  of 
the  genus  and  the  species  with  the  name  of  that 
variety,  as  Prunus  Avium  Burbank. 

[223] 


1  <k.  W    1    u 

*>    O  ■*-    B.  P 

N-. 

~ 

© 

.© 

capsules  of 
eneraiion    h 
shown  her 
wide    ran 
is    from    c< 
of  capsules 
unusual  sizi 
elected  at  ra 
about  two  t 
and  plants. 

>© 

The 

ond   g 

poppies 

trate    a 

variatio, 

absence 

sules  of 

were  s 

from 

ON  FACT  VS.  THEORY 

.  Or,  if  we  were  to  prepare  a  technical  article, 
about  this  species,  we  should  write  Primus  Avium 
at  the  first  mention  of  it,  and  contract  it  to  P. 
Avium  when  mentioning  it  thereafter. 

In  this  work,  in  order  to  gain  clearness  with 
the  least  effort,  and  to  avoid  confusion  through 
the  use  of  disputed  terms,  it  has  been  decided,  so 
far  as  possible,  to  call  plants  by  their  commonest 
names;  going,  wherever  necessary,  into  a  brief 
explanation  in  order  to  identify  the  plant  clearly 
in  the  mind  of  the  reader. 

Our  work  is  to  be  a  practical  work,  and  the 
effort  which  it  would  cost  to  master  thousands 
of  Latin  names  might,  it  is  believed,  be  better 
expended  in  a  study  of  the  principles  and  the 
practice. 

There  arises,  unfortunately,  a  confusion 
through  use  of  common  names.  The  California 
poppy,  for  example,  is  not  a  poppy  at  all;  but  for 
the  purposes  of  this  work  it  has  been  deemed  best 
to  call  it  the  California  poppy,  by  which  name  it 
is  generally  known,  rather  than  to  refer  to  it  as 
Eschscholtzia;  and  so  on  throughout  the  list  of 
other  plants. 

No  common  name  is  used,  however,  which  is 
not  to  be  found  in  the  dictionary;  so  that  those 
whose  scientific  interest  is  uppermost  have  but  to 
refer    to    their   Webster,    which    gives    a    greater 

[225] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

wealth  of  detail   than   could  be  hoped  for  in  a 
glossary  or  an  appendix  to  these  volumes. 

***** 

"A  few  years  after  I  came  to  Santa  Rosa,"  said 
Mr.  Burbank  as  he  was  sitting  on  his  porch  one 
evening,  "I  was  invited  to  hear  a  new  minister 
preach  on  a  subject  which,  I  was  assured,  would 
be  of  interest  to  me. 

"It  was  not  my  own  church,  so  I  tried  to  find 
my  way  to  an  unobtrusive  seat  in  the  rear,  where 
I  should  disturb  no  one.  But,  as  if  by  prearrange- 
ment,  the  usher  would  not  have  it  that  way — I  was 
led  to  the  front  center,  where  I  was  given  a  pew  to 
myself. 

"As  soon  as  the  sermon  began,  I  saw  the  reason 
for  it  all.  That  preacher,  with  a  zeal  in  his  heart 
worthy  of  a  better  cause,  had  evidently  planned 
a  sermon  for  my  own  particular  benefit.  He  was 
determined  to  show  me  the  error  of  my  ways. 

"He  began  by  describing  'God's  complete 
arrangements'  as  evidenced  in  the  plants  about 
us,  and  rebuked  me  openly  for  trying  to  improve 
on  the  creations  of  Omnipotence.  He  held  me  to 
ridicule  as  one  who  believed  he  could  improve 
perfection;  he  predicted  dire  punishment  for 
attempting  to  thwart  Nature  and  tried  to  persuade 
me,  before  that  audience,  to  leave  God's  plants 
alone. 

[226] 


The  Primus  Berry 

A    production   of  Mr.   Burbank's    which   shows   how, 
by  crossing  plants  out  of  kind,   we  are  helping   them   to   start 
species  which  will  be  free  from  inherited  disadvantages, 
and  bear  us,  bountifully,  better  crops. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

"Poor  man !  Whatever  may  have  been  thought 
of  his  good  taste,  or  his  tact,  or  his  judgment,  I 
could  hardly  take  offense  at  his  sentiments — for 
they  really  reflected  the  thought  of  that  day. 

"Poor  man!  He  could  not  see  that  our  plants 
are  what  they  are  because  they  have  grown  up 
with  the  birds,  and  the  bees,  and  the  winds  to  help 
them;  and  that  now,  after  all  these  centuries  of 
uphill  struggle,  man  has  been  given  to  them  as 
a  partner  to  free  them  from  weakness  and  open 
new  doors  of  opportunity. 

"He  could  not  see  that  all  of  us,  the  birds,  and 
the  bees,  and  the  flowers,  and  we,  ourselves,  are 
a  part  of  the  same  onward-moving  procession, 
each  helping  the  other  to  better  things;  nor  could 
many  of  the  others  of  his  time  see  that. 

"And  the  botanists  of  that  day,  less  than  four 
short  decades  ago,  found  their  chief  work  in  the 
study  and  classification  of  dried  and  shriveled 
plant  mummies,  whose  souls  had  fled — rather  than 
in  the  living,  breathing  forms,  anxious  to  reveal 
their  life  histories. 

"They  counted  the  stamens  of  a  dried  flower 
without  looking  at  the  causes  for  those  stamens; 
they  measured  and  surveyed  the  length  and 
breadth  of  truth  with  never  a  thought  of  its 
depth — they  charted  its  surface,  as  if  never 
realizing  that  it  was  a  thing  of  three  dimensions. 

[228] 


ON  FACT  VS.  THEORY 

"And  that  is  why  those  who  had  devoted  their 
lifetimes  to  counting  stamens  and  classifying 
shapes  told  me,  through  their  writings,  that  a  cross 
might  be  made  within  species,  but  never  between 
species;  that  is  why  when  I  did  make  a  cross 
between  species  they  looked  no  further  into  the 
truth,  but  simply  moved  up  a  notch,  and  said, 
'Very  well,  but  you  cannot  make  a  cross  between 
genera';  that  is  why,  when  I  did  that  very  thing, 
not  once,  but  scores  of  times,  that  type  of  scientist 
lost  interest  in   rule   making   and  went   back   to 

stamen  counting." 

***** 

To  realize  the  point  more  clearly,  let  us  observe 
for  a  moment  the  common  tomato — which  belongs 
to  that  large  division  of  plants,  the  nightshade 
family. 

Just  as  the  rose  family  includes  not  only  the 
rose,  but  the  apple  and  the  blackberry  and 
sixty-two  other  plants,  so  the  nightshade  family 
includes  seventy-five  genera  and  more  than 
eighteen  hundred  species. 

The  classification  is  built  around  structural 
facts,  such  as  that  plants  of  this  family  originally 
had  alternate  leaves  with  five  stamens  and  a  two- 
celled  ovary,  or  egg  chamber,  each  cell  containing 
many  eggs. 

These  structural  similarities  in  the  plants  of 

[229] 


Improved  Tigridias 

This   South   American   plant    with    which    Mr.    Burbank    has 

experimented  now  bears  blossoms  six  or  seven  inches  in  diameter,  of 

wonderful  formation  and  color  and  with  striking  tiger  spots 

which   add    to    the   weird   beauty    of   the   flower. 


ON  FACT  VS.  THEORY 

this  family  trace  back  to  a  common  parentage  and 
fully  justify  the  classification  of  these  seventy-five 
genera  in  a  single  family. 

If  we  were  to  look  not  at  the  structure, 
however,  but  at  the  seventy-five  plants  themselves, 
then,  and  only  then,  could  we  fully  realize  the 
wonders  which  environment,  toying  with  that 
common  heredity  within  the  plant,  has  wrought. 

We  should  see,  among  the  seventy-five  brothers 
and  sisters  of  that  family  if  they  were  spread 
before  us,  the  poisonous  bitter-sweet,  and  the 
humble  but  indispensable  potato;  the  egg  plant 
and  the  Jerusalem  cherry;  the  horse  nettle  and  the 
jimson  weed;  the  tobacco  plant  and  the  beautiful 
petunia;  and  the  tomato  itself. 

We  should  see  seventy-five  plants  with  original 
structural  similarities,  yet  differing,  in  every  other 
way,  as  night  differs  from  day;  and  we  should  be 
able  to  trace,  if  we  observed  closely  enough,  the 
points  at  which,  in  the  history  of  this  family,  hew 
environment,  oft  repeated,  has  hardened  into 
heredity,  subject  to  the  call  of  still  newer  environ- 
ment, which  has  not  been  lacking  to  bring  it  out; 
we  should  be  able  to  trace  out,  by  easy  stages, 
why  one  branch  ran  to  the  poisonous  bitter-sweet, 
another  to  the  potato  with  its  food  product  below 
the  ground,  another  to  the  tomato  with  its 
tempting  fruit  displayed  on  vines  above;  another 

[231] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

to  tobacco,  valued  for  its  chemical  content — and 
so  on  throughout  all  of  the  variations. 

The  tomato,  we  should  see,  was  the  last  of  the 
family  to  fall  into  a  violent  change  of  environment. 

A  tropical  plant,  bearing  fruits  about  the  size 
of  a  hickory  nut  and  not  believed  to  be  edible, 
the  tomato  found  its  way  into  the  United  States 
within  the  past  century. 

At  first,  the  tomato  plant  was  prized  merely 
as  an  ornament;  it  was  grown  as  we  now  grow 
rose  bushes,  and  the  fruit  was  looked  upon 
as  a  mantel  decoration,  until,  by  accident,  it  was 
discovered  to  be  edible.  There  are,  in  fact,  many 
such  ornamentals  today  which  might  bear  us 
edible  fruit.  One,  in  particular,  the  passion 
flower,  which  Mr.  Burbank  is  developing,  will  form 
the  subject  of  an  interesting  description  later  on. 

Following  the  discovery  that  the  tomato  was 
edible  came  the  same  course  of  unconscious  selec- 
tion that  falls  to  the  lot  of  every  useful  plant.  The 
biggest  tomatoes  were  saved,  the  better  tomatoes 
were  cultivated. 

In  the  environment  of  the  tropics,  the  tomato 
fruit  of  hickory  nut  size  was  ideal;  it  cost  less 
effort  to  produce  than  a  larger  tomato;  it  contained 
sufficient  seeds  to  insure  reproduction. 

But  with  the  advent  of  man  into  its  environ- 
ment, its  seed  chambers  increased  in  number,  the 

[232] 


Variable  Potato  Seedlings 

While  the  tomato  has  been  so  thoroughly  fixed  in  a  few 

decades  that  many  varieties  reproduce  true  to  seed,  its  cousin, 

the  potato,  as  explained  in  Chapter  II,  runs  into  wonderful  variations 

when    its    seed    is    planted.      The    potato    seedlings    pictured 

here  are  some   which   were  grown  from   the  seed   in 

the  potato  seed  balls  shown  on  page  57. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

meat  surrounding  the  seeds  increased  in  quantity 
and  improved  in  quality;  so  that  in  virtually  half 
a  century  the  large,  luscious,  juicy  tomato  we  now 
know  is  universally  to  be  found  in  our  markets, 
in  season  and  out. 

No  man  can  say  how  many  thousands  or  tens 
of  thousands  of  years  it  took  wild  environment  to 
separate  the  tomato  from  the  seventy-four  others 
of  its  family.  Yet,  in  less  than  half  a  century,  see 
what  changes  man,  as  an  element  of  environment, 
has  worked! 

We  take  the  seeds  of  our  Ponderosa  tomatoes 
and  set  them  out  in  a  can  or  a  shallow  box,  and 
midsummer  brings  us  new  Ponderosas — so  well 
have  we  succeeded  in  fixing  the  traits  we  desire. 

But  were  we  to  take  those  same  seeds  to  the 
tropics  and  plant  them  under  the  conditions  of 
only  fifty  years  ago  an  entirely  different  thing 
would  happen. 

The  first  generation  would  be  Ponderosas,  more 
or  less  like  those  we  grow  here. 

But  in  the  second  generation,  or,  at  latest,  the 
third,  the  seeds  of  those  very  Ponderosas,  when 
planted,  would  grow  into  vines  which  bear  the 
old  type  of  tomato — the  size  of  a  hickory  nut— an 
immediate  response,  almost,  to  the  wild  tropical 
environment  which  prevailed  before  man  came 
along. 

[234] 


ON  FACT  VS.  THEORY 

From  the  botanists  of  only  a  century  ago, 
examining  only  dead  tomato  blossoms  from  the 
tropics,  and  dried  tomato  fruits  the  size  of  hickory 
nuts — how  could  we  expect  an  inkling,  even,  of 
what  the  tomato  with  less  than  half  a  century  of 
cultivation  could  become? 

How  short,  indeed,  the  time  which  environment 
requires  to  transform  a  plant  beyond  recognition 
— especially  when  man,  either  consciously  or  un- 
consciously, becomes  a  part  of  that  environment! 

And,  knowing  what  the  Chinese  did  to  the  pear, 
what  the  American  Indian  did  to  corn,  what  our 
own  fathers  and  mothers  did  to  the  tomato,  can 
we  not  see  that,  while  stamen  counting  has  its 
place,  yet,  for  real  achievements  in  plant  improve- 
ment, we  must  look  for  help  not  so  much  to  the 
stamen  counters  as  to  the  plants  themselves  as  new 

environment  brings  their  old  heredities  into  view. 

***** 

Mr.  Burbank  has  made  combinations  between 
species;  he  has  made  combinations  between 
genera,  not  once,  but  many  times;  fertile,  seed- 
bearing  combinations. 

How  far,  then,  can  plant  combination  be 
carried?  Is  it  possible  to  go  above  the  genus  and 
make  combinations  between  families?  Or  to  go 
above  the  family  and  make  combinations  between 
the  orders?    Or  to  go  above  the  orders  and  make 

[235] 


Some  Blackberry  Canes 

It  is  possible,  from   the  appearance  of  the   cane  of  the 

blackberry,  at  certain  stages,  to  predict  the  color  of  the  fruit 

which  is  later  to  be  borne.     The  application  of  this  short-cut  is  fully 

explained    under    a    later    heading.       The    picture    above 

shows  a  range  of  variation  produced  by  crossing. 


ON  FACT  VS.  THEORY 

combinations  between  the  classes?  Or  to  go  above 
the  classes  and  make  combinations  between  the 
subkingdoms? 

"Give  us  time,"  says  Mr.  Burbank,  "and  we 
could  accomplish  anything. 

"The  limitations  of  our  work  are  not  limitations 
imposed  by  Nature;  they  are  limitations  imposed, 
alone,  by  the  clock  and  the  calendar. 

"Here  we  are,  fighting  ten  thousand  years  of 
hardened  heredity  with  five  or  ten  years  of  new 
environment;  sometimes  we  succeed;  it  is  no 
wonder  that  more  often  we  fail;  in  five  years, 
however,  we  can  usually  work  a  transformation; 
if  we  could  afford  to  spend  fifty  years  on  a  single 
plant,  we  could  upset  every  rule  that  has  ever  been 
formulated  about  that  plant;  and  if  we  could 
spend  five  thousand  years,  we  could,  simply  by 
guiding  Nature,  accomplish,  well,  anything. 

"Every  season  we  are  working  changes  which 
Nature  would  take  ages  to  work ;  but  from  a 
practical  standpoint  we  must  seek  always  to  take 
advantage  of  the  old  heredities  which  Nature  has 
stored  up — to  make  them  serve  our  ends,  because 
this  can  be  done  quickly;  rather  than  to  create  and 
fix  new  heredities  which  might  take  so  long  as  to 

rob  our  work  of  its  usefulness." 

***** 

Here,  then,  is  Mr.  Burbank's  bird's-eye  view: 

[237] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

Before  us  is  a  world  of  living,  onward-march- 
ing plants — plants  which  have  made,  are  making, 
and  will  continue  to  make,  their  own  rules  as  they 
go  along.  Here,  before  us,  too,  is  the  propaganda 
of  our  subject  with  its  maps,  plans,  charts,  rules, 
laws,  theories,  beliefs,  built  up  too  fixedly,  too 
arbitrarily,  too  superficially,  perhaps,  but  very 
completely,  nevertheless,  around  this  onward- 
marching  mass. 

Let  us  use  to  the  utmost  all  the  help  that  science 
can  give;  to  save  time,  let  us  accept  the  laws  and 
the  rules,  let  us  have  confidence  in  the  maps  and 
the  charts,  until  the  plants  themselves  show  our 
error. 

Let  us  search,  always,  for  stored  up  heredities 
to  convert  to  our  use,  just  as  we  would  seek  stored 
up  diamonds,  or  gold,  or  coal,  instead  of  trying, 
by  chemistry,  to  produce  them. 

Let  us  realize,  always,  that  everything  is 
possible  with  time;  but  let  us  seek  out  all  the 
short-cuts  we  can. 

For,  after  all,  we  have  so  little  of  Time! 

*       *       *       *       * 

With  time  as  our  limiting  factor,  then,  we  shall 
find,  in  plant  work,  many  things  which  we  cannot 
hope  to  accomplish. 

We  shal]  find  plants,  of  course,  of  different 
species,  and  different  genera — a  surprising  num- 

[238] 


^5 

r  s 

to   to 


3    re    3    -* 


3   3   0 

—  3  h_ 


a  5  3  2 


2    E 

re   <3 

ft.  re 


o  <»  J° 

'  ?  •«  S  S  <* 

wO  B 

s: «  "*  ©  3 

re  »  S^*"* 

-  R    °  2 
13  ~ 


re 


O   3-  i 


~<*  re 

.  o  3  o.  5 

l  -t>  re        £ 

i  re  3 

n  3  i  s 

im    re    '      <* 

2  ""*  1  "a 

S3  .Co  fe  £ 


3- 
2  -o 

re  3- 


0,  re  C 


J'Bft 


§.§  ^     S 


•"5  s 


O  3"  © 

*-h  O    1 

»  s 

2  S 


2 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

ber,  in  spite  of  the  old  belief,  which  will  combine 
readily  to  produce  fertile  offspring  constituting 
a  new  species  or  a  new  genus. 

We  shall  find  plants  of  different  species  or 
genera  which  combine  to  make  a  sterile  offspring 
— a  mule  among  plants. 

And  we  shall  find  plants  which  can  hardly  be 
combined  at  all — plants  in  which  the  pollen  of  one 
seems  to  act  as  a  definite  poison  on  the  other — 
plants  with  large  pollen  grains  which  cannot  push 
their  tubes  down  the  pistils  of  smaller  flowers — 
and  plants  which,  through  long  fixed  heredity, 
seem  as  averse  to  combination  as  oil  seems  averse 
to  combining  with  water. 

"But  no  man,"  says  Mr.  Burbank,  who  has  just 
read  this,  "can  tell  until  he  has  tried — tried  not 

once,  but  thousands  and  thousands  of  times." 

***** 

"What  is  that?"  asked  a  seedsman  who  was 
visiting  Mr.  Burbank. 

"That  is  a  Nicotunia,"  replied  Mr.  Burbank, 
"and  you  are  the  first  man  in  the  world  who  has 
ever  seen  one.  It  is  the  name  which  I  have  given 
to  a  new  race  of  plants  produced  by  crossing  the 
large  flowering  nicotianas,  or  tobacco  plants,  with 
petunias.  It  is,  as  you  can  see,  a  cross  between  two 
genera  of  the  nightshade  family." 

"H'm!"  said  the  seedsman. 

[240] 


ON  FACT  VS.  THEORY 

"You  know  the  secret  now,"  said  Mr.  Burbank, 
"but  if  you  think  that  you  can  produce  these  nico- 
tmiias  as  you  would  hybrid  petunias,  or  crossbred 
primroses,  go  ahead  and  try;  there  is  no  patent  on 
their  manufacture;  but  if  the  five  hundredth  cross 
succeeds,  or  even  the  five  thousandth,  under  the 
best  conditions  obtainable,  you  will  surely  be  very 
successful.  I  do  not  fear  any  immediate  competi- 
tion.   This  one  cost  me  ten  thousand  tries." 

Perhaps  those  who  have  said  that  species  could 
not  be  combined  with  species,  or  genus  with  genus 
have  tried  only  once  or  twice  or  a  dozen  times. 
Perhaps  Mr.  Burbank's  patience  and  persistence 

account  for  some  of  the  upset  laws. 

***** 

"Why  not  content  ourselves  to  work  within 
varieties  as  the  bees  work?"  asks  some  one. 

"Because  by  going  out  of  the  varieties  and 
combining  between  species,  and  going  out  of  the 
species  and  combining  between  genera,  we  mul- 
tiply almost  infinitely  the  combinations  of  old 
heredities  which  we  may  bring  into  play — we 
lessen  the  work  which  we  have  to  make  environ- 
ment do  by  spreading  before  us  more  combinations 
of  heredity — we  accomplish  in  two  years  what 
otherwise  might  take  two  lifetimes." 

In  all,  Mr.  Burbank  has  made  one  hundred 
and  seventy-nine  combinations  between  different 

[241] 


Variations  in  Walnuts 

All  of  the   variations   pictured  above   were  secured  by   crossing. 

Mr.  Burbank,  in  his  walnut  work,  has  grown  nuts  by  the  wagon  load 

for  the  purpose  of  finding  one  or  two  which  came  near  his  ideal. 


ON  FACT  VS.  THEORY 

species  and  different  genera,  treated  elsewhere, 
all  of  which  were  thought  to  be  impossible. 

It  was  such  combinations  as  these  which  en- 
abled him  to  perfect  the  cactus,  to  produce  the 
plumcot,  to  make  the  Shasta  daisy — in  fact,  it  was 
Luther  Burbank's  lack  of  respect  for  man-made 
laws,  when  plants  told  him  a  different  story,  that 
has  given  the  world  eighty  per  cent,  of  his  produc- 
tions— that  has  led  him  to  ninety  per  cent,  of  his 
discoveries  in  practical  method. 

"The  only  reason,"  said  Mr.  Burbank,  "that  we 
do  not  combine  between  families,   and  between 

orders,  and  classes,  is  that  we  haven't  the  time." 

***** 

So  we  see  that  the  science  of  plant  life  is  not 
an  exact  science,  like  mathematics,  in  which  two 
and  two  always  equal  four.  It  is  not  a  science  in 
which  the  definite  answers  to  specific  problems 
can  be  found  in  the  back  of  any  book. 

It  is  a  science  which  involves  endless  experi- 
menting— endless  seeking  after  better  and  better 
results. 

Theories  are  good,  because,  if  we  do  not  permit 
them  to  mislead  us,  they  may  save  us  time;  laws, 
and  maps,  and  charts,  and  diagrams — systems  of 
classification  and  of  nomenclature — all  these  are 
good,  because,  if  they  are  faulty,  they  still  reveal 
to  us  the  viewpoint  of  some  one  who,  with  dili- 

[243] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

gence,  has  devoted  himself  to  a  single  phase,  at 
least,  of  a  complex  subject. 

But  we  must  remember  that  the  theories,  most 
of  them,  are  built  around  dead  plants. 

While  the  facts  we  are  to  use  are  to  be  gathered 
from  living  ones. 

So,  every  once  in  a  while,  when  we  come  to  a 
crossroads  where  that  kind  of  theory  and  this  kind 
of  fact  seem  to  part,  let  us  stick  to  the  thing  which 
the  living  plant  tells  us,  and  assume  that  evolution, 
or  improvement,  or  progress,  or  whatever  we 
choose  to  call  it,  has  stolen  another  lap  on  the 
plant  historians. 

And  let  us  remember  that  the  fact  that  ours  is 
not  an  exact  science,  with  fixed  answers  to  its 
problems,  is  more  than  made  up  for  by  the 
compensating  fact  that  there  seems  to  be  no  limit 
to  the  perfection  to  which  plant  achievements  may 
be  carried — no  impassable  barrier,  apparently 
(save  time — which  limits  us  all,  in  everything), 
beyond  which  our  experiments  may  not  go. 


— Nature  did  not  make 
the  laws;  she  limits  her- 
self to  no  grooves;  she 
travels  to  no  set  schedule. 


Some  Plants  Which  Are 

Begging  for 
Immediate  Improvement 

A  Rough  Survey  of 
the  Possibilities 


I  HAVE  finished  making  an  analysis  of  a  number 
of  your  fruits,"  wrote  a  chemist  to  Mr.  Burbank, 
"and  I  find  that  pectic  acid,  which  is  so  apt  to 
play  havoc  with  the  human  digestive  tract,  and 
which  accounts  for  the  inability  of  many  people 
to  enjoy  raw  fruit,  is  almost  entirely  absent." 

"It  must  be,  then,  that  I  don't  like  pectic  acid," 
commented  Mr.  Burbank  as  he  read  the  letter. 

"It  never  occurred  to  me  to  give  the  matter  of 
its  elimination  a  thought;  so,  the  only  way  I  can 
account  for  the  lack  of  it  is  that,  as  I  have  selected 
my  fruits  by  tasting,  I  have  preferred  those  which 

were  low  in  this  content." 

*       *       *       *       + 

It  would  be  no  small  achievement  to  rebuild 
our  fruits  and  grains  and  vegetables  to  fit  the 
finnicky   stomachs   which   sedentary   occupations 

[Volume  I — Chapter  VIII] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

are  giving  us.  Yet  such  a  transformation  is  one 
which  might  be  easily  wrought  in  a  few  years 
through  simple  selection,  and  serves,  here,  to 
illustrate  the  vast  range  of  possibilities  in  plant 
improvement  which  only  wait  willing  hands  and 
active  minds  to  turn  them  into  realization. 

Immediate  possibilities  for  plant  improvement, 
indeed,  outnumber  the  improvements  which  have 
already  been  wrrought,  ten  thousand  to  one. 

It  is  planned  in  these  books  to  treat  of  the 
possibilities  of  each  plant  separately,  in  connection 
with  the  description  of  the  work  which  has 
already  been  done,  since  each  of  Mr.  Burbank's 
improvements  not  only  suggests  countless  other 
improvements  which  he  has  not  had  the  time  to 
take  up,  but  indicates,  in  a  measure,  the  method 
by  which  their  accomplishment  may  be  brought 
about. 

It  may  be  well,  at  this  point,  however,  to 
survey,  roughly,  the  range  of  possibilities  for 
improvement,  so  that,  as  we  go  along,  we  may 
have  an  appreciative  eye  for  the  value  of  the 
things  which  are  clamoring  to  be  done. 
***** 

The  incident  of  the  pectic  acid  is  but  one  of 
many  unexpected  improvements  which  Mr.  Bur- 
bank  has  discovered  in  his  productions  after  his 
first  object  has  been  achieved. 

[246] 


ON  THE  POSSIBILITIES 

Possibly  as  striking  an  illustration  of  this  as 
could  be  chosen  is  one  which  made  itself  evident 
in  the  plumcot. 

So  intent  was  Mr.  Burbank  on  his  purpose  of 
combining  two  species,  the  plum  and  the  apricot — 
so  single-minded  was  his  idea  of  producing  a  fruit 
which  should  reflect  its  double  parentage  in  flesh 
and  flavor — that  he  lost  sight  of  some  of  the 
incidental  possibilities  of  such  a  combination. 

The  cross  having  been  made,  however,  he  set 
about  to  study  the  other  new  characters  which  the 
combination  showed. 

Some  of  these  were  recognized  as  being  of 
little  practical  value. 

The  foliage  of  the  plumcot  tree,  for  example, 
does  not  necessarily  resemble  the  plum  or  the 
apricot,  being  intermediate  and  representing  a 
perfect  blend.  Though,  it  may  be  noted  in  passing, 
the  foliage  of  a  cross  or  hybrid  often  takes  on  the 
characteristics  of  either  one  parent  or  the  other, 
or  may  consist  of  varicolored  leaves,  or  may  even 
present  leaves  of  two  distinct  kinds.  This  is  an 
interesting  and  important  subject  which  will  be 
clearly  illustrated  with  direct  color  photographs 
later. 

Finding  the  plumcot  foliage  a  blend,  Mr.  Bur- 
bank  was  not  surprised  to  discover  that  the  root 
of  the  plumcot  tree  resembled  in  color  neither  the 

[247] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

bright  red  of  the  apricot,  nor  the  pale  yellow  of 
the  plum,  but  was  of  an  intermediate  shade. 

Of  the  thousands  of  characteristics  of  the 
parent  species  as  they  were  subjected  to  examina- 
tion and  analysis,  the  most  startling  was  found  in 
the  surface  texture  of  the  fruit  itself — one  of  the 
most  novel  effects,  in  fact,  to  be  seen  in  all  Nature. 

The  apricot  has  a  fine  velvety  skin  which  serves 
not  only  as  a  protection  to  the  fruit  from  insects 
and  from  the  sun's  withering  rays,  but  which  adds 
greatly  to  its  attractive  appearance. 

Plums,  usually,  are  overspread  with  a  delicate 
white  or  bluish  bloom,  powdery  in  form,  easily 
defaced  by  the  slightest  handling.  This  bloom 
adds  a  touch  of  delicacy  and  beauty  to  the  fruit, 
suggests  its  freshness,  and  intensifies  the  attrac- 
tiveness of  the  colors  underneath. 

In  the  early  plumcots  it  was  noticed  that  many 
had  a  softer,  more  velvety  skin  than  the  apricot, 
and  that  this  persisted  after  much  handling. 
Then,  as  the  characteristics  began  to  settle,  after 
several  generations  of  plumcots  had  appeared,  it 
was  noticed  that  the  new  fruit  not  only  had  the 
attractive  velvety  skin  of  the  apricot,  but  that 
this  velvet  overspread  and  protected  a  bloom  like 
that  of  the  plum,  giving  the  plumcot  the  plum's 
delicacy  of  appearance,  with  the  apricot's  hardi- 
ness to  handling. 

[248] 


mm' 


=*s  inb  re  3e*? 

"•  <*  CQ    rr,  g.~-*  «    B   <*   2 

?a^ra-??re«g^o 


*?  3 


ft.  ■■»  ~ 

a  S  »  S*  a 

«  a."  w  o 

Co  O1  £•  2,  •* 

~.  o  s  3 


^   2 


s«a     -a  s 

S  c  2  a .? 


*  3 
3  ~.  re       o< 

S  » "=  3" 

n  i  O*  o>  g 

a-a«:      » 

3- 3- 2-  re   re 


S*   3 


3 


5-e 


a  <*  re  3*  2 
.  3  <B  co  re  3 


2   £   ^ 
B 

O     Co 

O 

3 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

When  this  blend  of  bloom  and  velvet  was 
noted,  experiments  were  made  to  determine  how 
much  handling  it  would  withstand.  A  dozen 
plumcots  were  passed  around  from  hand  to  hand 
possibly  hundreds  of  times,  and  then  left  to  decay, 
the  condition  of  the  velvet  bloom  being  noted  from 
time  to  time. 

While  there  was  a  slight  decrease  in  the  bril- 
liancy of  the  bloom,  yet  it  persisted  to  a  surprising 
degree  even  after  the  flesh  of  the  plumcot  had 
decayed. 

The  accompanying  color  photograph  prints 
show  clearly  the  difference  in  appearance  between 
the  plum  and  the  plumcot  after  being  subjected 
to  handling. 

The  value  of  this  characteristic  is  greater  than 
might  first  be  estimated.  Plums  lose  their  bloom 
to  a  great  extent,  even  on  the  tree — by  brushing 
of  leaves  or  chafing  together.  Wherever  foliage 
or  other  fruit  touches  it,  the  bloom  is  injured  or 
destroyed  beyond  repair.  It  is  of  course  impossible 
to  get  the  plum  to  market  without  rubbing  off  the 
greater  part  of  the  bloom  and  giving  the  fruit  a 
mussy  appearance.  In  making  the  photographs 
in  these  books,  in  fact,  it  has  been  found  difficult, 
first  to  find  the  fruit  which  has  a  perfect  bloom  on 
the  tree;  and  second,  to  get  the  plum  in  front  of 
the  camera  without  defacing  it. 

[250] 


3  ass 


5l??is 


>a  2  ~.  2,  s? 


'5*  a  ffss1^ 


3     -o  a-. 


2  "a 


a  «.g,j 


K.-Bf 


Ju 
5 


a- 

Hi 
Co 

K 
o 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

Wherever  a  finger  touches  the  plum  a  mark  is 
left,  and  since  fruits,  at  best,  must  receive  much 
handling  from  the  orchard  to  the  ultimate  con- 
sumer, the  plum  is  likely  to  lose  its  charm  long 
before  its  real  freshness  or  flavor  has  begun  to 
depreciate. 

With  the  plumcots,  however,  the  velvety  bloom 
remains  through  growing,  picking,  sorting,  ship- 
ping, handling  and  sale.  Which  means,  of  course, 
that  the  grower,  the  shipper,  and  the  dealer  receive 
a  better  profit,  and  the  consumer  pays  the  extra 
cost  with  cheerfulness,  because  appearance,  after 
all,  is  nearly  as  valuable  a  point  in  a  fruit  as  size, 
flavor  or  sweetness. 

This  one,  unplanned,  unexpected  improvement 
in  the  plumcot  increases  the  earning  capacity  of 
the  fruit  by  more  than  $100.00  per  acre  over  what 
could  be  earned  if  plumcots  had  an  evanescent 
bloom  like  their  parent  plums. 

Which  is  simply  another  evidence  of  the 
importance,  in  plant  improvement  (and  else- 
where) of  things  which,  at  first,  we  are  too  apt  to 
regard  as  trifles. 

It  is  the  seeming  trifles,  after  all,  which  appear 
to  have  the  greatest  effect  on  prices  and  profits. 
Of  the  two  tins  of  asparagus  shown  here,  one 
commands  more  than  twice  the  retail  price  of  the 
other,  and  brings  considerably  more  than  double 

[252] 


Both  Good  Asparagus 


This  direct  color  photograph  print  shows  the  advantage 
of  selecting  asparagus  for  durability  as   well  as  for  size   and 
flavor.      One    tin   shows   stalks    which   are   whole   and    tempting — the 
other  stalks   which,  during  the  process  of  cooking  and  can- 
ning, have  broken  and  become  messy.     The  unbroken 
asparagus   costs  no  more   to  raise   but  com- 
mands twice  as  great  a  market  price. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

the  profit  to  the  asparagus  grower,  simply  because 
of  the  trifle  that  the  more  costly  asparagus  stands 
up  through  all  the  operations  from  the  garden 
to  the  table,  while  the  other,  broken  down  in 
structure,  presents  a  messy,  unappetizing  appear- 
ance when  served. 

Since  it  costs  no  more  to  raise  the  higher  priced 
asparagus,  after  the  expense  of  a  few  seasons  of 
selection  has  been  paid  for,  what  excuse  can  there 
be  for  producing  the  other  kind? 

It  would  be  impossible,  here,  to  begin  to 
catalog  the  improvements  which  can  be  wrought — 
improvements  in  the  size,  shape,  color,  texture, 
juiciness,  flavor,  sweetness,  or  chemical  content 
of  fruits;  improvements  in  the  appearance,  ten- 
derness, taste,  cooking  qualities,  and  nutritive 
elements  in  vegetables;  improvements  in  length 
and  strength  of  fiber  in  cotton,  flax  and  hemp; 
improvements  in  size,  flavor,  solidity,  thinness  of 
shell  of  nuts;  improvements  in  the  quantity  and 
the  quality  of  kernels  in  grains;  improvements  in 
amount  and  in  value  of  the  chemical  content  of 
sugar  beets,  sorghum,  coffee,  tea  and  all  other 
plants  which  are  raised  for  their  extracts;  im- 
provements, wonderful  improvements,  in  the  stalk 
of  corn,  even,  so  that  though  we  could  make  it 
bear  no  more  kernels,  or  no  more  ears,  it  would 
still   yield   us   a   better   and   bigger  forage   crop; 

[254] 


ON  THE  POSSIBILITIES 

improvements,  all  of  them,  which  are  capable  of 
turning  losses  into  profits,  and  of  multiplying 
profits,  instead  of  merely  adding  to  them  by  single 
per  cents. 

*  *  it  *  * 

Improving  the  yield  and,  consequently,  the 
usefulness  and  profit  of  existing  plants,  however, 
is  but  the  beginning  of  the  work  before  us. 

An  almost  equally  rich  field  lies  in  saving 
plants  from  their  own  extravagance,  thereby 
increasing  the  3d  eld. 

The  fruit  trees  of  our  fathers  and  mothers  were 
shade  trees  in  size,  with  all  too  little  fruit. 

The  ideal  orchard  of  today,  generally  speaking, 
is  the  one  which  can  be  picked  without  the  use  of 
a  step  ladder.  Thus,  already,  we  have  taught  fruit 
bearing  plants  economy — saved  them  the  extrava- 
gance of  making  unnecessary  wood,  at  the  expense 
of  fruit,  since  it  is  their  fruit,  not  their  wood,  that 
we  want. 

The  grapes  of  our  childhood  grew  sparsely  on 
climbing  vines  which  covered  our  arbors;  while 
the  grapes  grown  for  profit  today  grow  thickly, 
almost  solidly,  on  stubby  plants  three  feet  or  so 
in  height.  The  value  of  the  grape  plant  lies  in 
the  fruit  and  not  in  the  vine. 

In  so  many  different  ways  can  we  save  our 
plants    extravagance    and    increase    their    useful 

[255] 


Transforming  the  Gladiolus 

When  Mr.  Burbank  first  began  his  work  with  the  gladiolus, 
its  blossoms  were  widely  separated  on  a  long  stalk.     The  direct 
color  photograph  print  above  shows  how  he  has  brought  them  into  a 
compact  mass,  and  how,  in  many  cases,  he  has  trained  them 
to  bloom  around  the  entire  stalk  instead  of  only  on  two 
sides  as  before.     Mr.  Burbank  also   increased  the 
size  and  strength  of  the  gladiolus  stalk  that 
it  might  better  withstand  the  winds — 
all    of   these    things    in    addition 
to  the  wonderful  improve- 
ments he  has  wrought 
in  the  flower  itself. 


ON  THE  POSSIBILITIES 

products  by  curbing  their  useless  ones,  that  it 
would  not  be  possible  to  list  them  here. 

But,  aside  from  these,  and  in  the  same  category, 
there  are  countless  other  new  improvements  to 
be  wrought. 

The  stoneless  plum  points  the  way  to  a  new 
world  of  fruits  in  which  the  stony  or  shell-like 
covering  of  the  seeds  has  been  bred  away. 

The  coreless  apple,  pear  and  quince,  with 
sheathless  seeds  growing  compactly  near  the  top, 
out  of  the  way — these  are  all  within  the  range  of 
accomplishment. 

Seedless  raspberries,  blackberries,  gooseber- 
ries, currants,  with  the  energy  saved  reinvested 
in  added  size  or  better  flavor,  call  for  some  one 
to  bring  them  about.  Seedless  grapes  we  have  had 
for  more  than  a  century;  yet  by  a  certain  cross 
which  Mr.  Burbank  will  suggest  in  the  grape 
chapter,  he  believes  that  they  can  be  doubled  in 
size  and  much  improved  in  flavor.  Seedless  figs, 
even,  might  be  made,  but  these  could  be  counted 
no  improvement;  for  the  seeds  of  the  fig  give  the 
fruit  its  flavor. 

Seedless  watermelons  might  mean  more  work 
than  the  result  would  repay,  but  navel  water- 
melons, with  seeds  arranged  as  in  the  navel  orange, 
would,  likely  enough,  yield  a  result  commensurate 
with  the  effort  required  to  produce  them. 

[257] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

Thornless  blackberries  and  spineless  cactus  are 
productions  of  proven  worth  and  long  standing, 
which  Mr.  Burbank  has  now  followed  up  with  his 
thornless  raspberry — with  many  other  thornless 
plants  to  come.  Why  thorns  at  all,  in  the  world 
of  useful  plants,  when  useful  plants  no  longer 
need  them? 

Whatever  plant  we  observe  we  shall  see  some 
waste  which  might  be  eliminated,  some  weakness 
which  might  be  overcome,  some  extravagance 
which  might  be  checked — and  all  for  the  profit 

of  producer  and  consumer  alike. 

***** 

Still  another  important  department  of  plant 
improvement  lies  in  fitting  plants  to  meet  specific 
conditions. 

The  grape  growers  of  California,  for  example, 
had  their  vineyards  destroyed  by  a  little  plant 
louse  called  the  phylloxera,  a  pest  which  not  only 
attacks  the  leaves,  but  the  roots  as  well,  and  kills 
the  vine.  The  growers  found  relief  through 
grafting  new  vines  on  resistant  roots  which  en- 
vironment had  armored  against  this  pest. 

When  we  think  of  the  cactus,  and  the  sage- 
brush, and  the  desert  euphorbia — of  the  conditions 
which,  unaided,  they  have  withstood  and  the 
enemies  which  they  have  overcome,  does  it  not 
seem  as  if,  with  our  help,  we  should  be  able  to 

[258] 


A  New  Thornless  Fruit 

Mr.  Burbank's  thornless  blackberry  is   well  known,  and 

now,  by  the  application  of  the  same  methods,  he  has  produced 

his  first  thornless  raspberry.     Plants  which  are  under  cultivation  no 

longer  have  need  for  thorns  and  it  is  possible   to  save   them 

the   extravagance   of  producing    them    so    that    they   may 

have  more  energy  to  put  into  their  useful  product. 


Eft 

c 


o  c  ?  -o 


i,  ©  i« 

0^9 


^o 


-»  O  2   w 
S   g   *s   V  e  4) 


,  »>  "^ 


-5 


1)  q    OS  Q    "i 

ot  =.  ~  -5  '£  "Si 


as 


^0^2  _~~^ 


■c:  os 

O    4. 

55 


a. 

o  *- 

•a  a 

c  o 


~  2  «,  „  C 


CO 


ON  THE  POSSIBILITIES 

produce  new  races  of  plants  to  withstand  the  boll 
weevil,  the  codling  moth  and  the  San  Jose  scale; 
and  with  complaints  so  broadcast,  and  successes 
so  marked  and  so  many,  does  not  the  perfection 
of  disease-  and  pest-resisting  varieties  seem  an 
important  and  lucrative  field? 

Nor  are  the  insects  and  diseases  the  only 
enemies  which  plants  can  be  taught  to  overcome. 
Mr.  Burbank  has  trained  trees  to  bloom  later  in 
the  season  so  as  to  avoid  the  late  frosts  which 
might  nip  the  buds;  and  to  bear  earlier,  that  their 
fruit  may  be  gathered  before  the  early  frosts  of 
fall  have  come  to  destroy.  He  has  encouraged 
the  gladiolus  to  thicken  its  stalk  and  to  rearrange 
its  blossoms,  so  that  the  wind  no  longer  ruins  its 
beauty. 

And  the  prune,  which  must  lie  on  the  ground 
till  it  cures,  had  the  habit,  here  in  California,  of 
ripening  at  about  the  time  of  the  equinoctial  rains 
of  fall.  Mr.  Burbank  helped  it  to  shift  its  bearing 
season  earlier  so  that,  now,  when  the  rains  come, 
the  prune  crop  has  been  harvested  and  is  safely 
under  cover. 

In  all  of  these  enemies  of  plant  life,  the  insects, 
and  the  diseases,  and  the  rains,  and  the  frosts, 
and  the  snows,  and  even  the  parching  heat  of 
the  plains,  there  are  opportunities  for  the  plant 
improver. 

[261] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

Yet  these  enemies  form  the  least  important, 
perhaps,  of  the  special  conditions  to  which  plants 
may  be  accommodated. 

The  market  demand,  for  example,  is  a  specific 
condition  which  well  repays  any  effort  expended 
in  transforming  plants  to  meet  it. 

The  early  cherries,  and  the  early  asparagus, 
and  the  early  corn — and  every  fruit  and  food 
which  can  be  offered  before  the  heavy  season 
opens,  is  rewarded  with  a  fancy  price  which 
means  a  fancy  profit  to  its  producer. 

The  early  bearers,  too,  may  be  supplanted 
with  those  still  earlier,  until  the  extra  early  ones 
overlap  the  extra  late  ones.  Mr.  Burbank  now 
has  strawberries,  which,  in  climates  where  there 
is  no  frost  severe  enough  to  prevent,  bear  the 
year  around. 

Mr.  Burbank's  winter  rhubarb,  another  year- 
around  bearer,  as  well  as  his  plumcot  with  its 
indestructible  bloom,  are  improvements  which 
show  what  can  be  done  in  the  way  of  meeting 
market  demand. 

His  cherries,  which  have  retailed  at  $3.10  a 
pound  because  of  their  lusciousness  and  their 
earliness,  give  an  idea  of  the  profit  of  changing 
the  bearing  periods  of  our  plants  as  against  taking 
their  output  as  it  comes. 

Beside   the   market   demand   for   fresh   fruits 

[262] 


ON  THE  POSSIBILITIES 

and  vegetables  ahead  of  time,  there  is  an  almost 
equally  great  demand,  later  on  in  the  season,  from 
the  canners. 

The  illustration  of  the  asparagus  which  stands 
canning  as  against  equally  good  asparagus  which 
does  not,  typifies  the  needs  of  this  demand.  The 
same  truth  applies  to  tree  fruits  and  berries 
and  vegetables — to  everything  that  undergoes  the 
preserving  process. 

Some  plants  are  more  profitable  when  their 
bearing  season  is  lengthened  as  much  as  possible; 
some,  as  has  been  seen,  when  it  is  made  earlier 
or  later;  but  Mr.  Burbank  faced  a  different  con- 
dition when  he  produced  his  Empson  pea. 

The  canners  wanted  a  very  small  green  pea 
to  imitate  the  French  one  which  is  so  much  used. 
Quite  a  little  problem  in  chemistry  was  involved. 
Peas  half  grown  are  two-thirds  sweeter  than  peas 
full  grown,  because,  toward  the  end,  their  sugar 
begins  to  go  a  step  further  and  turn  into  starch. 
With  these  demands  in  mind,  Mr.  Burbank  planted 
and  selected,  and  planted  and  selected  until  he 
had  the  qualities  he  wanted  in  a  pea  of  the  right 
size  when  it  was  half  ripe. 

But  still  another  element  entered — peas  for 
canning  should  ripen  all  at  one  time  and  not 
straggle  out  over  a  week  or  two.  The  reason 
for  this  being  that,  if  they  ripen  all  at  once,  they 

[263] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

may  be  harvested  by  machinery  so  that  the  cost  of 
handling  is  cut  to  the  minimum. 

Mr.  Burbank  took  the  peas  which  he  had 
selected  for  form,  size,  color,  taste,  content,  and 
productiveness;  then  picked  them  over  and,  out 
of  tens  of  thousands,  got  perhaps  one  or  two 
hundred  peas  which  he  planted  separately.  These, 
then,  he  harvested  by  separately  counting  the 
pods  and  counting  the  peas,  until  he  had  finally 
combined  in  his  selection  not  only  the  best  of 
the  lot  but  those  which  ripened  at  the  same  time — 
practically  on  the  same  day.  Today  those  Burbank 
Empson  peas  form  the  chief  industry  of  a  large 
community. 

There  are  countless  other  requirements  which 
can  be  equally  well  met — countless  little  econ- 
omies which  can  be  taught  to  the  plants — little, 
as  applied  to  any  specific  plant,  but  tremendous 
in  the  aggregate. 

There  is,  for  instance,  Mr.  Burbank's  new 
canning  cherry  which,  when  picked,  leaves  its 
stone  on  the  tree.  It  would  seem  a  small  thing  to 
one  eating  the  cherries  as  he  picks  them  off  the 
tree.  Yet,  think  of  the  saving,  as  carload  after 
carload  of  these  are  brought  to  the  cannery — the 
saving  at  a  time  when  minutes  count,  when  help 
is  short,  generally,  and  when  the  fruit,  because 
of   heat,   is   in   danger   of   spoiling — under   these 

[264] 


Leaves  the  Stone  on  the  Tree 

This    direct    color   photograph    print   shows    one   of   Mr. 

Burbank's    new    productions,    a   canning    cherry    which,    when 

picked,  leaves  the  pit  on  the  tree.     The  saving  in  not  having  to  pit 

the  cherries  at  the  canning  factory  although,  at  first  apparently 

trifling,  is,  in  the  aggregate,  larger  than  would  be  supposed; 

particularly   in   view  of  the  fact  that   the  canning 

seasons  are  so  short  that  much  fruit  spoils 

through  handling  and  through  the  delay 

which    handling    necessitates. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

conditions  think  of  the  saving  in  not  having  to 
pit  them. 

The  list  could  be  extended  almost  endlessly, 
from  thickening  the  skin  of  the  plum  so  as  to 
enable  it  to  be  shipped  to  South  Africa  and  back, 
as  Mr.  Burbank  has  done,  to  the  production  of  a 
tomato,  which,  when  placed  in  boiling  water,  will 
shed  its  skin  without  peeling — which  Mr.  Burbank 
says  can  be  done. 

Under  the  head  of  saving  a  plant  from  its  own 
extravagance  might  well  come  the  large  subject 
of  bringing  trees  to  early  fruiting,  or  of  short- 
ening the  period  from  seed  to  maturity  in  shade 
and  lumber  trees.  Mr.  Burbank's  quick  growing 
walnut,  and  his  pineapple  quince  and  chestnut 
seedlings  bearing  crops  at  six  months,  stand  forth 
as  strong  encouragement  to  those  who  would  take 
up  this  line. 

Then,  too,  under  the  same  heading  of  fitting 
plants  to  meet  new  conditions,  whole  chapters 
might  be  written  on  how  the  fig  tree  could  be 
adapted  to  New  England;  or  how  Minnesota  might 
be  made  one  of  the  greatest  fruit  producing  states, 
or  how  almost  any  plant  might,  in  time,  be  adapted 
to  any  soil  or  any  climate. 

And,  conversely,  there  is  the  broad  subject  of 
adapting  plants  to  special  localities.  The  hop  crop 
of  Sonoma  County,  California,  the  cabbage  crop 

[266] 


ON  THE  POSSIBILITIES 

near  Racine,  Wisconsin,  the  celery  crop  near 
Kalamazoo,  the  canteloupe  crop  at  Rocky  Ford — 
all  of  these  bear  eloquent  testimony  to  the  profit 
of  a  specialty  properly  introduced. 

Who  can  say  how  many  who  are  making  only 
a  hand-to-mouth  living  out  of  corn  or  wheat,  sim- 
ply because  they  are  in  corn  or  wheat  countries, 
could  not  fit  some  special  plant  to  their  worn  out 
soil? 

And  who,  seeing  that  some  forms  of  plant  life 
not  only  exist,  but  thrive,  under  the  most  adverse 
conditions,  shall  say  that  there  is  any  poor  land, 
anywhere?  Is  it  not  the  fact  that  poor  land  usually 
means  that  the  plants  have  been  poorly  chosen 
for  it,  or  poorly  adapted  to  it? 

These  are  all  problems  which  will  be  treated 
in  their  proper  places,  problems  which  offer  rich 
rewards  to  plant  improvers  of  determination  and 

patience. 

***** 

So  far,  in  these  opportunities  for  plant  im- 
provement, we  have  referred  only  to  the  better- 
ment of  plants  now  under  cultivation. 

When  we  remember  that  every  useful  plant 
which  now  grows  to  serve  us  was  once  a  wild 
plant,  and  when  we  begin  to  check  over  the  list 
of  those  wild  plants  which  have  not  yet  been 
improved,  the  possibilities  are  almost  staggering. 

[267] 


A  Wild  Plant  Improved 

This  direct  color  photograph  print  shows  the '™ld£e™      . 
England  aster  and  the  improvement  which  a  s mg |   "£™    came 
selection  by  Mr.  Burbank  worked.     All  of  our  cultivated  plana  came 
from  the  wild,  but  the  possibility  of  imp rov  ng  ™ldp™£[ 
far  from  being  exhausted,  has,  in  fact,  only  been  toucnea. 


ON  THE  POSSIBILITIES 

Not  all  plants,  of  course,  are  worth  working 
with — not  all  have  within  them  heredities  which 
could  profitably  be  brought  forth.  But  as  a  safe 
comparison,  it  might  be  stated  that  the  propor- 
tion between  present  useful  plants  and  those  in 
the  wild  which  can  be  made  useful,  is  at  least 
as  great  or  greater  than  the  proportion  between 
the  coal  which  has  already  been  mined,  and  the 
coal  which  is  stored  up  for  us  in  the  ground. 
Greater,  by  probably  a  hundred  times,  for  while 
we  have  depleted  our  coal  supply,  our  plants  have 
been  multiplying,  not  only  in  number,  but  in  kind 
and  in  form. 

Moreover,  from  our  wild  plants,  we  may  not 
only  get  new  products,  but  new  strength,  new 
hardiness,  new  combative  powers,  and  endless 
other  desirable  new  qualities  for  our  tame  plants. 

All  of  these  things  are  just  as  immediate  as 
possibilities,  as  transcontinental  railroads  were 
fifty  years  ago.  All  of  these  things  can  be  made  to 
come  about  with  such  apparent  ease  that  future 
generations  will  take  them  as  a  matter  of  course. 

Yet  we  have  not  touched,  so  far,  on  the  most 
interesting  field  in  plant  improvement  —  the 
production,  through  crossing,  hybridizing  and 
selection,  of  entirely  new  plants  to  meet  entirely 
new  demands. 

Who  shall  produce  some  plant — and  there  are 

[269] 


Improving  the  Sunflower 

Even  the  common  sunflower  has  possibilities  for  improve- 
ment as  a  useful  plant.     Sunflower  seed  is  greatly  prized  by 
poultry  raisers  for  feed.     But  the  improvements  which  Mr.  Burbank 
is  working,  along  different  lines  which  will  be  described  later, 
may  transform  this  into  one  of  the  most  useful  of  plants. 


ON   THE   POSSIBILITIES 

plenty  of  suggestions  toward  this  end — which  shall 
utilize  cheap  land  to  give  the  world  its  supply  of 
wood  pulp  for  paper  making,  the  demand  for 
which  has  already  eaten  up  our  forests  and  is  fast 
encroaching  on  Canada's? 

Who  shall  say  that  within  twenty  years  there 
will  not  be  some  new  plant  better  than  flax,  some 
plant  which,  unlike  flax  for  this  purpose,  can  be 
grown  in  the  United  States,  to  supply  us  with  a 
fabric  as  cheap  as  cotton,  but  as  fine  as  linen? 

Who  will  be  the  one  to  produce  a  plant  which 
shall  yield  us  rubber — a  plant  growing,  perhaps, 
on  the  deserts,  which  shall  make  the  cost  of 
motor  car  tires  seem  only  an  insignificant  item  in 
upkeep? 

And  who,  on  those  same  deserts,  and  growing, 
perhaps,  side  by  side,  shall  perfect  a  plant  which 
can  be  transformed  into  five  cent  alcohol  for  the 
motors  themselves? 

***** 

We  see  that  the  openings  for  plant  improve- 
ment broadly  divide  themselves  into  four  classes. 

First,  improving  the  quality  of  the  product  of 
existing  plants. 

Second,  saving  plants  from  their  own  extrava- 
gance, thereby  increasing  their  yield. 

Third,  fitting  plants  more  closely  to  specific 
conditions  of  soil,  climate  and  locality. 

[271] 


CO 

© 

s 

CO 


CO 


«J  -S  <•  a  ©  © 


1      53  a 


ss 


a,  9 


05  05 

©  J< 

■2  a  -2  B  a  ~ 

©  .c  a  w  * 


HI  I 

4)    05 

©  _$>  fe 

~  — .  ~ 

*>  a 

~  3-a 

a  5  a 


•-•-  B  B5 

•<   O)  O  S 

05  05  r- 

©  a  c 

~  >,  «s 

~  "■"  s  3 


4)  J2 


a© 


-  05 


©  © 

<u  B  S? 

•b  a  ~  ~ 
"42  2 


~-  §  5  a  ■ 

a  «  ~s  a 

■a  © 

•~  ©  i.  5    . 

,*;  .2  ©  5  «■« 

a  a  S"3.S 
a      05 

"©       u  B^r 

©  a-.  cs,j; 

"ills" 

a.S^©t<, 


E  © 
©  ~  .5 


S  a 


2  aS* 


ON  THE  POSSIBILITIES 

And  fourth,  transforming  wild  plants  and 
making  entirely  new  ones  to  take  care  of  new 
wants  which  are  growing  with  surprising  rapidity. 

*       *       *       *       * 

The  cost  and  quality  of  everything  that  we  eat 
and  wear  depend  on  this  work  of  plant  improve- 
ment. 

The  beefsteak  for  which  we  are  paying  an 
ever-increasing  price  represents,  after  all,  so 
many  blades  of  grass  or,  perhaps,  so  many  slabs  of 
cactus;  while  the  potatoes,  the  lettuce  and  the 
coffee  which  go  with  it  come  out  of  the  ground 
direct. 

Our  shirts  are  from  cotton  or  flax,  or  from  the 
mulberry  tree  on  which  the  silkworm  feeds. 

Our  shoes,  like  our  steaks,  resolve  themselves 
into  grass;  while  our  woolen  coats  represent  the 
grass  which  the  sheep  found  after  the  cows  got 
through. 

The  mineral  kingdom  supplies  the  least  of  our 
needs;   and   the   animal  kingdom  feeds   on,   and 

depends  on,  the  vegetable  kingdom,  after  all. 

***** 

"Who  can  predict  the  result,"  asks  Mr.  Bur- 
bank,  "when  the  inventive  genius  of  young 
America  is  turned  toward  this,  the  greatest  of  all 
fields  of  invention,  as  it  is  now  turned  toward 
mechanics  and  electricity?" 

[273] 


-5  tJ 

a,  ?3 


3  °°  ^ 

03    5 


3S' 


:  3  tc;  ~  ■ 


•  -a  «,  u  ^~ 
leg      o     , 

;  a  o  «j  v.  <n  • 

i  c  ?>  -~  •£  ■ 

I  °>  -z  *-  "r: 

'  «*  •»>  s  s 

;  «>  &  c  -2  a 

>      c  «»  a.^' 
50;       a 


S 
a  « 

«,~  a 


^ 


ay 


* 


V 


a"? 


t-  S  S 

■K.  «    (J 


<n  a  *  a.  o  a, 


Piecing  the  Fragments 

of  A 
Motion  Picture  Film 

We  Stop  to  Take 
A  Backward  Glance 


WHEN  you  speak  of  environment  as  an 
active    influence,"    Mr.    Burbank    was 
asked,  "do  you  mean  the  soil  and  the 
rainfall  and  the  climate?" 

"Yes,"  was  the  reply.  "I  mean  those;  but 
not  only   those;    I   mean,   too,   such   elements   of 

environment  as  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad. 

***** 

"I  will  explain,"  Mr.  Burbank  continued. 

"Go  out  into  the  woods,  almost  anywhere  in 
the  United  States,  and  hunt  up  a  wild  plum  tree, 
and  you  will  find  that  it  bears  a  poor  little  fruit 
with  a  great  big  stone. 

"You  see,  the  only  purpose  which  the  wild  plum 
has  in  surrounding  its  seed  with  a  fruit  is  to 
attract  the  animals  so  that  they  may  carry  it  away 
from  the  foot  of  the  parent  tree  and  plant  it  in 

[Volume  I — Chapter  IX] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

new  surroundings,  for  the  good  of  the  offspring 
and  the  race.  It  takes  very  little  meat,  and  very 
little  in  the  way  of  attractive  appearance  to 
accomplish  this  purpose;  and  besides,  the  wild 
plum  has  to  put  so  much  of  its  vitality  into  stone, 
in  order  to  protect  the  seed  within  it  from  the 
sharp  teeth  of  the  same  animals  which  carry  it 
away,  that  it  has  little  energy  left  to  devote  to 
beauty  and  flavor. 

"Then  take  the  same  wild  plum  after  it  has 
been  brought  under  cultivation  and  as  it  grows 
in  the  average  backyard,  and  you  will  find  a 
transformation  —  less  stone,  more  meat,  better 
flavor,  finer  aroma,  more  regular  shape,  brighter 
color. 

"This,  however,  represents  but  the  first  stage 
in  the  progress  of  the  plum;  with  all  this 
improvement  the  backyard  plum  still  may  not 
be  useful  for  any  commercial  purpose;  because 
people  with  plum  trees  in  their  backyards  are 
likely  to  eat  the  fruit  off  the  tree,  or  to  give  it 
to  their  neighbors,  or  to  cook  and  preserve  it  as 
soon  as  ripe.  So,  even  the  cultivated  backyard 
plum  may  be  perfectly  satisfactory  for  its  purpose 
without  having  those  keeping  qualities  necessary 
in  a  commercial  fruit. 

"And  this  is  the  point  at  which  the  Union 
Pacific  Railroad  entered  into  its  environment — at 

[276] 


A  BACKWARD  GLANCE 

least  into  the  environment  of  the  California  plum. 

"The  railroad  became  a  factor  in  plum  im- 
provement by  bringing  millions  of  plum-hungry 
easterners  within  reach — by  affording  quick  and 
economical  shipping  facilities  where  there  had 
been  no  shipping  facilities  at  all  before. 

"Much  as  the  time  of  transcontinental  travel  was 
reduced,  the  backyard  plum  could  not  withstand 
the  journey.  But  with  an  eager  market  as  an 
incentive,  made  possible  through  the  railroad, 
people  began  to  select  plums  for  shipment,  until 
the  plum  graduated  from  its  backyard  environ- 
ment and  became  the  basis  of  a  thriving  industry. 
The  railroad,  by  bringing  customers  within  reach 
of  those  who  had  plums  which  would  stand 
shipment,  and  charging  as  much  to  ship  poor 
plums  as  good  plums,  encouraged  selection  not 
only  for  shipping  plums,  but  toward  a  better  and 
better  quality  of  fruit  which,  without  doubt,  in 
the  absence  of  the  market  which  the  railroad 
provided,  would  never  have  been  produced. 

"Thus  we  see  three  important  stages  in  the 
transformation  of  the  plum. 

"First,  the  wild  era. 

"Second,  the  backyard  era. 

"Third,  the  railroad  era." 

*  *  *  *  * 

When  we  stop  to  think  of  it,  all  of  the  great 

[277] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

improvements  in  plant  life  have  been  wrought  in 
the  railroad  era — using  the  railroad,  figuratively, 
to  represent  all  of  the  invention,  wealth  and 
progress  which  have  accompanied  it. 

There  are,  after  all,  but  one  hundred  and  forty 
generations  between  us  and  Adam,  if  the  popular 
notions  of  elapsed  time  are  correct — but  one 
hundred  and  forty  father-to-son  steps  between 
the  Garden  of  Eden  and  now — but  one  hundred 
and  forty  lifetimes,  all  told,  in  which  whatever 
progress  we  have  made  has  been  accomplished. 

Yet  our  plants  go  back,  who  knows  how  many 
tens  of  thousands  of  generations? 

It  took  the  plum  tree  all  of  these  uncounted 
ages,  in  which  it  had  only  wild  environment,  to 
produce  the  poor  little  fruit  which  we  find  growing 
in  the  woods. 

It  took  only  two  or  three  short  centuries  of 
care  and  half-hearted  selection  to  bring  about  the 
improvement  which  is  evidenced  in  the  common 
backyard  plum. 

And  it  took  less  than  a  generation,  after  the 
railroads  came,  to  work  all  of  the  real  wonders 
which  we  see  in  this  fruit  today. 

The  last  two  generations  of  the  human  race, 
in  fact,  have  accomplished  more  toward  real 
progress — have  done  more  to  make  transportation 
and    quick    communication    possible — have    gone 

[278] 


A  BACKWARD  GLANCE 

further  in  invention,  art,  science,  and  general 
knowledge — than  the  one  hundred  and  thirty-eight 
generations,  which  preceded  them,  combined. 

So,  up  to  two  or  three  human  generations  ago, 
the  plants,  with  their  start  of  tens  of  thousands 
of  generations,  were  abreast  of  or  ahead  of  human 
needs. 

But  human  inventive  genius,  going  ahead 
hundreds  or  thousands  of  years  at  a  jump, 
bringing  with  it  organization  and  specialization, 
has  changed  all  of  that. 

In  our  race  across  the  untracked  plains  before 
us,  we  have  outrun  our  plants.  That  is  all.  And, 
having  outrun  them,  we  must  lend  a  hand  to 
bring  them  up  with  us  if  they  are  to  meet  our 

requirements. 

*       *       *       *       * 

Shall  we  content  ourselves  with  watering  our 
plants  when  they  are  dry;  and  enriching  the  soil 
when  it  is  worn  out;  shall  we  be  satisfied  merely 
to  be  good  gardeners? 

Or  shall  we  study  the  living  forces  within  the 
plants  themselves  and  let  them  teach  us  how  to 
work  real  transformations? 

***** 

It  is  conceivable  that  a  manufacturer  of 
machinery  might  become  successful,  or  even  rise 
to    be    the    foremost    manufacturer    in    his    line, 

[279] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

without  giving  a  moment  of  consideration  to  the 
atom-structure  of  the  iron  which  he  works — with 
never  a  thought  of  the  forces  which  Nature  has 
employed  in  creating  the  substance  we  call  iron 
ore. 

It  is  conceivable  that  one  might  become  a  good 
cook — a  master  chef,  even — without  the  slightest 
reference  to,  or  knowledge  of,  the  structural 
formation  of  animal  cells  and  vegetable  cells. 

Or  that  one  might  succeed  as  a  teacher  of 
the  young — might  become,  even,  a  nation-wide 
authority  on  molding  the  plastic  mind  of  youth — 
without  ever  being  assailed  by  the  thought  that 
the  forbears  of  the  nimble-minded  children  in  his 
care,  ages  and  ages  ago,  may  have  been  swinging 
from  tree  to  tree  by  their  tails. 

And  so,  in  most  occupations,  it  has  been 
contrived  for  us  that  we  deal  only  with  present- 
day  facts  and  conditions — that  there  is  little 
incentive,  aside  from  general  interest  or  wandering 
curiosity,  to  try  to  lift  the  veil  which  obscures  our 
past — or  to  peer  through  the  fog  which  keeps  us 
from  seeing  what  tomorrow  has  in  store. 

In  plant  growing,  more  than  in  any  of  the 
world's  other  industries,  does  the  scheme  of 
evolution  and  a  working  knowledge  of  Nature's 
methods  cease  to  be  a  theory  —  of  far-away 
importance   and   of  no   immediate   interest — and 

[280] 


Snow-on-the-Mountain 

This  odd  plant  is  shown  here  to  illustrate  the  necessity 
of   studying   not   merely    the   form    of   a   plant    but   the    forces 
within  it      It  receives   its  name   because   when   it   blooms   its   leaves 
begin  to  turn  white.     The  purpose  of  this,  Mr.  Burbank  says,  is  to 
help  guide  the  insects  to  the  blossom  in  order  to  insure  reproduction. 
It  will  be  noted  that  the  leaves  which  do  not  lead  to  blossoms  remain 
green     while    those    which    surround    the    blossoms   form    brilliantly 
illumined  pathways  for  the  insects.  Few  plants  give  outward  evi- 
dences of  their  processes  so  clearly  as  this — but  the  forces 
of  heredity  and  environment  are  there — none  the  less 
—and  it  is  these  forces  which  we  must  study 
if  ive  are  to  help  plants  to  improvement. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

become  an  actual  working  factor,  a  necessary 
tool,  without  which  it  is  impossible  to  do  the 
day's  work. 

Whether  plant  improvement  be  taken  up  as  a 
science,  or  as  a  profession,  or  as  a  busines$ — or 
whether  it  be  considered  merely  a  thing  of  general 
interest,  an  idle  hour  recreation — there  is  ever 
present  the  need  to  understand  Nature's  methods 
and  her  forces  in  order  to  be  able  to  make  use  of 
them — to  guide  them — there  always  stares  us  in 
the  face  that  solitary'  question: 

"Where— and  how— did  life  start?" 
***** 

We  have  seen  in  this  volume  a  color  photograph 
of  corn  as  it  grew  four  thousand  years,  perhaps, 
before  the  days  of  Adam  and  Eve. 

It  took  less  than  eight  seasons  to  carry  this 
plant  backward  those  ten  thousand  years. 

How  this  plant  was  first  taken  back  to  the 
stage  in  which  it  was  found  by  the  American 
Indians,  thus  revealing  the  methods  which  they 
crudely  used  to  improve  it — and  how  it  was  taken 
back  and  back  and  back  beyond  the  Pharaohs  and 
then  back  forty  centuries  before  the  time  of  man — 
how  we  know  these  things  to  be  true — and  how,  as 
a  result  of  these  experiments  we  are  about  to 
see  it  carried  forward  by  several  centuries — all  of 
these  things  are  reserved  for  a  later  chapter  where 

[282] 


E*t3 

ag?g 

<*  k,        re 

5  o  a,« 


o"  o  ~  o-  s-"e  o  a 


~  3  o 


•a  ~tg  <» 

a  5  a  c 

k^,  re 
ft 

•a  a. 


■  g^  5  2.*1* 


:    S    S' 

S    3 


re  w  *< 
o  C  re 
re   ^  re 


re 


<^  Si' 

3  IS 

"5    — ' 

re  &• 


»*  5. 
■  2. 5"  >■ 


o-S 


re  0 


Cft    Co' 


§  b  s 


^^  re  IS    i 


3  *,     SO 

©"2    3" 

o 
S 

o 


C"  tr  o' 

3     * 

«  5, 

o  g  ■ 

g  re 

3 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

space  will  permit  the  treatment  which  the  subject 
deserves. 

The  illustration  is  cited  here  merely  as  one  of 
thousands,  typical  of  plant  improvement,  in  which, 
in  order  to  work  forward  a  little,  we  must  work 
backward  ages  and  ages. 

It  is  cited  here  to  show  that  what  is  merely  an 
interesting  theory  to  the  mass  of  the  world's 
workers,  becomes  a  definite,  practical,  working 
necessity  to  the  man  or  woman  who  becomes 
interested  in  plant  improvement. 

It  is  cited  here  so  that  we  may  be  helped  to  get 
a  clearer  mind  picture  of  Mr.  Burbank's  viewpoint 
— of  that  viewpoint  which,  after  all,  has  enabled 
him  to  become  a  leader  in  a  new  line,  the  founder 
of  a  new  art — instead  of  remaining  a  nurseryman 

or  gardener. 

***** 

"In  my  viewpoint,"  says  Mr.  Burbank,  "there 
is  little  that  is  new  —  little  that  has  not  been 
discovered  by  others  —  little  that  has  not  been 
accepted  by  scientists  generally — little  that  re- 
quires explanation  to  those  who  simply  see  the 
same  things  that  I  have  seen. 

"I  have  no  new  theory  of  evolution  to  offer — 
perhaps  only  a  few  details  to  add  to  the  theories 
which  have  already  been  worked  out  by  men  of 
science. 

[284] 


A  BACKWARD  GLANCE 

"And  I  make  these  observations  and  conclusions 
of  mine  a  part  of  this  work  for  two  reasons : 

"First,  because  they  are  products  not  of 
imagination,  reasoning,  or  any  mental  process — 
but  the  practical  observations  and  conclusions 
which  have  gained  force  and  proof,  year  by 
year,  in  a  lifetime  of  experience  with  plants — 
throughout  forty  years  of  continuous  devotion  to 
the  subject,  during  which  time  I  have  tried  more 
than  one  hundred  thousand  separate  experiments 
on  plant  life;  and,  as  such,  represent  an  important 
phase  of  my  work. 

"Second,  because  an  ever-present  interest  in 
evolution — an  ever-eager  mind  to  peer  backward 
and  forward — is  essential  not  only  to  the  practice 
of   plant   improvement,    but    even    to    the   barest 

understanding  of  it." 

***** 

To  gain  the  first  quick  glimpse,  let  us  liken  the 
process  of  evolution  to  a  moving  picture  as  it  is 
thrown  on  the  screen. 

Imagine  for  example  that  some  all-seeing 
camera  had  made  a  snapshot  of  Nature's  progress 
each  hundred  years  from  the  time  when  plant  life 
started  in  our  world  to  the  present  day. 

Imagine  that  these  progressive  snapshots  were 
joined  together  in  a  motion  picture  reel,  and 
thrown  in  quick  succession  upon  a  screen. 

[285] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

We  should  see,  no  doubt,  as  the  picture  began 
to  move,  a  tiny  living  being,  a  simple  cell,  the 
chemical  product,  perhaps,  of  salty  water — so 
small  that  900  of  them  would  have  to  be  assembled 
together  to  make  a  speck  big  enough  for  our 
human  eyes  to  see. 

As  snapshot  succeeded  snapshot  we  should 
see  that  two  of  these  microscopic  simple  cells 
in  some  way  or  other  formed  a  partnership — 
possibly  finding  it  easier  to  fight  the  elements  of 
destruction  in  alliance  than  alone. 

We  should  see,  beyond  doubt,  that  these 
partnerships  joined  other  partnerships,  and  as 
partnership  joined  partnership,  and  group  joined 
group,  these  amalgamations  began  to  have  an 
object  beyond  mere  defense — that  they  began  to 
organize  for  their  own  improvement,  comfort,  well 
being,  or  whatever  was  their  guiding  object. 

We  should  see  that,  whereas  each  simple  cell 
had  within  it  all  of  the  powers  necessary  to  move 
about  and  live  its  life  in  its  own  crude  way,  yet 
with  the  amalgamation  of  the  cells  there  came 
organization,  development,  improvement. 

Some  of  the  cells  in  each  amalgamation,  let  us 
say,  specialized  on  seeing,  some  on  locomotion, 
some  on  digestion. 

Thus,  while  each  simple  cell  had  all  of  these 
powers  in  a  limited  way,  yet  the  new  creature, 

[286] 


A  BACKWARD  GLANCE 

as  a  result  of  specialization,  could  see  better,  move 
more  readily,  digest  more  easily,  than  the  separate 
elements  which  went  into  it. 

And  so,  through  the  early  pictures  of  our  reel, 
there  would  be  spread  before  us  the  development 
of  the  little  simple  cell  into  more  and  more 
complex  forms  of  life — first  vegetable,  then  animal 
— into    everything,   finally,   that  lives   and   grows 

about  us  today — into  us,  ourselves. 

*       *       *       *       * 

In  an  actual  motion  picture  as  it  is  thrown 
on  the  screen,  it  is  only  the  quick  progressive 
succession  of  the  pictures  that  makes  us  realize 
the  sense  of  motion. 

If  we  were  to  detach  and  examine  a  single  film 
from  the  reel,  it  would  show  no  movement.  It 
would  be  as  stationary  and  as  fixed  as  a  child's 
first  kodak  snapshot. 

In  the  motion  picture  of  Nature's  evolution, 
the  world,  as  we  see  it  about  us  in  our  lifetime, 
represents  but  a  single  snapshot,  detached  from 
those  which  have  preceded  it  and  from  those 
which  are  to  succeed  it. 

And  so,  some  of  us — too  many  of  us — not 
confronted  with  the  same  necessity  which  irre- 
sistibly leads  the  plant  student  into  the  study  of 
these  forces — viewing  only  the  single,  apparently 
unmoving  picture  before  us,  have  concluded  that 

[287] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

there  is  no  forward  motion — that  there  has  been 
no  evolution — that  there  will  be  none. 

The  plant  student,  above  all  others,  has  the 
greatest  facilities  at  his  hand  for  observing  not 
only  the  details  of  the  picture  which  is  now  on  the 
screen — but  for  gaining  glimpses — fragmentary 
glimpses — of  pictures  which  have  preceded — of 
piecing  these  together — and  of  realizing  that  all 
that  we  have  and  are  and  will  be  must  be  a  part 
of  this  slow,  sure,  forward-moving  change  that 
unfailingly  traces  itself  back  to  the  little  simple 
salt-water  cell. 

As  we  go  further  and  further  into  the  work 
we  shall  begin  to  see  the  film  fragments  which  to 
workers  in  other  lines  are  obscured,  unnoticed, 
unknown. 

We  shall  be  able  to  observe  details  of  the 
process — carried  home  to  us  with  undeniable 
conviction — indisputable  to  any  man  who  believes 
what  he  actually  sees  —  which  will  give  us  a 
realistic  view  of  the  whole  motion  picture  which 
to  the  world  at  large  has  always  been  denied. 

We  shall  find  that,  dealing,  thus,  with  Nature's 
forces  at  first  hand,  our  work  will  inspire  an 
interest  beyond  even  the  interest  of  creating  new 
forms  of  life. 

And,  as  our  work  unfolds,  the  side  lights  which 
we  shall  see  will  clear  up  many  or  most  of  the 

[288] 


A  BACKWARD  GLANCE 

doubts  which  are  likely  to  take  possession  of  us 

at  the  outset. 

***** 

It  may  be  well,  at  this  point,  however,  to 
take  space  to  refer  to  the  single  question  most 
frequently  asked  by  thousands  of  intelligent  men 
and  women  who  have  visited  Mr.  Burbank's 
experiment  farms. 

This  question,  differing  in  form,  as  the  indi- 
vidualities of  the  questioners  differ,  usually  runs 
like  this: 

"If  we  are  descendants  of  monkeys,  why  are 
not  the  monkeys  turning  into  men  today?" 
***** 

Let  us  learn  Mr.  Burbank's  answer  to  this 
question  by  turning  to  the  golden-yellow  California 
poppy,  so  called,  and  the  three  entirely  new 
poppies  (illustrated  here  in  natural  colors),  which 
he  produced  from  it. 

In  order  to  make  clear  the  truth  which  the 
poppies  prove,  it  is  necessary  to  explain  the 
successive  steps  of  the  operation. 

Mr.  Burbank  first  grew  a  yardful  of  the  wild, 
golden-yellow  poppies,  such  as  cover  California's 
hills. 

The  individual  poppies  of  this  yardful — a 
million  of  them,  at  a  guess — resembled  each  other 
as  closely  as  one  rose  resembles  another  rose  on 

[289] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

the  same  bush,  or  as  one  grape  resembles  another 
on  the  same  bunch,  as  one  pea  resembles  another 
in  the  same  pod. 

Yet  among  those  million  poppies — all  looking 
alike  to  the  unpracticed  eye — there  could  be  found 
by  a  close  observer  as  many  individual  differences 
as  could  be  found  among  any  million  human 
beings  in  the  world. 

Among  those  million  poppies,  each  with  its 
distinct  individuality,  Mr.  Burbank  found  three 
which  had  a  decided  tendency  to  break  away  from 
the  California  poppy  family  and  start  a  separate 
race  of  their  own. 

This  same  tendency  could  be  observed  among 
a  million  men,  a  million  roses,  a  million  peas,  a 
million  quartz  crystals,  or  a  million  of  any  of 
Nature's  creations. 

Those  one,  or  two,  or  three  out  of  every  million 
with  tendencies  to  break  away  are  sometimes 
called  the  freaks  or  "sports"  of  the  species. 

It  seems  as  though  Nature,  never  quite  satisfied 
with  her  creations,  is  always  experimenting,  with 
the  hope  of  creating  a  better  result — yet  limiting 
those  experiments  to  such  a  small  percentage  that 
the  mass  of  the  race  remains  unchanged — its 
characteristics  preserved — its  general  tendencies 
unaffected. 

The  California  poppy,  as  it  grows  wild,  is  a  rich 

[290] 


California  Poppy 


This   direct  color  photograph   print  shows   the   wild 

California  poppy,  so  called,  golden-yellow,  as  it  grows  in  one 

of  Mr.  Burbank's  cactus  patches.      This  common  wild  flower  covers 

California's  hills  at  certain  seasons  and  from  it  the  State  is 

supposed  to  have  received  its  name,  "The  Land  of  Fire." 


The  Golden  Poppy  Turned  Crimson 

The  first  transformation  which  Mr.  Burbank  wrought  in  the 

California  poppy  us  explained  in  the  text  matter  was  to  turn  it  to 

crimson.      The   success    of    this    experiment    can    be   judged 

from    the    color    photograph    print    shown    here. 


The  California  Poppy  Turned  White 

The   next   experiment   which   Mr.  Burbank   tried   was    to 

eliminate  the  yellow  of  the  wild  poppy  and  produce,  instead, 

a  white  flower.     The  tips  of  the  petals  of  this  poppy  are  now  pure 

white,  while  the  centers  remain  a  very  light  cream-yellow,  the 

only  suggestion  of  the  bright  golden  yellow  of  its  ancestors. 


\ 


The  Poppy  Turned  Fire-Flame 

In   his   poppy    variations   Mr.   Burbank  found   some 

hnfhM%'  ln,ste?d  °f  Ending  the  inherited  characteristics  showed 

both  distinctly  in  the  same  flower— lemon  yellow   edges   with   golden 

yellow  centers.     These,  perhaps  the  most  beautiful  result  of  his 

experiment,  he  christened  "The  Fire-Flame  Poppy." 


A  BACKWARD  GLANCE 

golden-yellow.  In  spite  of  individual  differences, 
this  color  is  the  characteristic  of  the  kind.  It  is  a 
fixed  characteristic,  dating  back  at  least  to  the 
time  when  California,  because  of  the  poppy 
covered  hills,  received  its  name — the  land  of  fire — 
from  the  early  Spanish  navigators  that  ventured 
up  and  down  the  coast. 

Out  of  the  billion  billions  of  wild  poppies  that 
have  grown,  each  million  has  no  doubt  contained 
its  freaks  or  its  "sports" — its  few  experimental 
individuals  which  Nature  has  given  the  tendency 
to  break  away  from  the  characteristics  of  their 
fellows. 

Yet  in  the  history  of  the  California  poppy 
family,  as  far  back  as  we  can  trace,  none  of  these 
freaks  or  "sports"  had  ever  achieved  its  object. 

Among  the  "sports"  which  Mr.  Burbank  found 
in  the  million  poppies  he  grew  were  one  with  a 
crimson  tendency,  one  with  a  white  tendency,  and 
one  with  a  lemon-yellow,  fiery-red  tendency. 

If  Mr.  Burbank  had  not  intervened,  these 
freaks,  quite  likely,  would  have  perished  without 
offspring. 

But  by  nurturing  them,  separating  them  and 
saving  their  seeds,  within  a  few  brief  seasons  he 
was  able  to  produce  three  new  kinds  of  the 
California  poppy. 

Each  kind  had  all  of  the  parent  poppy  charac- 

[295] 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

teristics  but  one.  They  were  California  poppies 
in  habits,  in  growth,  in  shape,  in  size,  in  form,  in 
grace,  in  texture,  in  beauty. 

Yet  in  color  they  differed  from  the  California 
mid  poppy  almost  as  a  violet  differs  from  a  daisy. 

One  of  these  freaks  developed  into  the  solid 
crimson  poppy,  another  into  the  pure  white  poppy, 
and  still  another  into  the  fire-flame  poppy — all 
shown  here. 

The  details  of  method  employed  and  the 
application  of  these  methods  and  the  underlying 
principles  to  the  improvement  of  other  flowers, 
fruits,  trees  and  useful  and  ornamental  plants,  will 
be  left  for  later  chapters.  But  as  an  illustration, 
this  poppy  experiment  brings  home  three  things : 

First,  that  Nature  creates  no  duplicates. 

Second,  that  although  each  of  Nature's  crea- 
tions has  its  own  distinctive  individuality,  all  the 
time  she  takes  special  precautions  to  fix,  preserve, 
and  make  permanent  the  characteristics  of  each 
of  her  races  or  kinds. 

Third,  that  there  is  always  present  in  all  of 
her  creations  the  experimental  tendency  to  break 
away  from  fixed  characteristics — to  start  new 
races — to  branch  out  into  entirely  new  forms  of 
development.  Through  Mr.  Burbank's  interven- 
tion, in  the  case  of  the  poppy,  this  tendency  was 
crowned    with    success;    in    ten    thousand    years, 

[296] 


•a 
2  "S 


£"2\.«&tf    -3 


5"  3  -*  S.  a-  n-  5 
~.  a  *>  2  2  2  * 

o •  s.  ft  3  3  a  <q 
0  3-S-P3 

£."2.  a 


ft.© 

ft  a 


S" 


C/5 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

perhaps,    without   intervention    at    all,    the    same 
result  might  have  been  attained. 

From  the  fern  at  the  water's  edge,  to  the  apple 
tree  which  bears  us  luscious  fruit — from  the  oyster 
that  lies  helpless  in  the  bottom  of  Long  Island 
Sound,  to  the  human  being  who  rakes  it  up,  and 
eats  it — every  different  form  of  life  about  us  may, 
thus,  be  traced  to  the  experiments  which  Nature 
is  continually  trying,  in  order  to  improve  her 
creations. 

As  to  the  question  so  often  asked,  monkeys  are 
no  more  turning  into  men  than  golden-yellow 
poppies  are  turning  into  crimson,  white  or  fire- 
flame  poppies. 

In  monkeys,  as  in  men  and  poppies — and  quartz 
crystals — there  is  ever  present  the  tendency  to 
break  away  from  the  kind,  yet  Nature  is  always 
alert  to  prevent  the  break — unless  it  demonstrates 
itself  to  be  an  advance,  an  improvement — from 
occurring. 

She  gives  us,  all  of  us,  and  everything— 
individuality,  personality — unfailingly,  always — at 
the  same  time  preserving  in  each  the  general 
characteristics  of  its  kind. 

Yet  all  the  time  she  is  creating  her  freaks 
and  "sports" — all  the  time  she  is  trying  new 
experiments — most  of  them  doomed  to  die  unpro- 
ductive— with  the  hope  that  the  thousand  freaks 

[298] 


Another  Color  Variation 

Unlike  the  five-flame  poppy  in  which  the  center  is  of  one  color  and 

the    outside    edges    of   another,    this    poppy,    unnamed,    has    vertical 

divisions  on  each  petal,  half  crimson  and  half  yellow.    This  is  hut 

one  of  the  countless  variations  secured  in  the  poppy  experiment. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

among   a   billion    creations    may    show    the   way 
toward  a  single  improvement  in  a  race. 
***** 

In  this  hurried  backward  glance,  we  have,  by 
no  means,  gone  back  to  the  beginning  of  things. 
Even  the  moving  picture  of  Nature's  course  from 
the  salt-water  cell  to  us,  covering  what  seems  an 
infinity  of  time,  may  be  but  a  single  stationary 
film  in  a  still  greater  moving  picture— and  that, 
too,  but  a  part  of  a  greater  whole. 

Indeed,  the  further  we  go  into  our  subject,  the 
more  we  are  convinced  that  instead  of  having 
followed  the  thread  of  life  to  its  beginning,  we 
have  merely  been  following  a  raveling  which  leads 
into  one  of  its  tiny  strands. 

The  more  we  learn  definitely  about  the  process 
which  we  trace  back  to  the  simple  salt-water  cell, 
the  more  we  are  led  to  inquire  into  those  other 
forms  of  energy — into  the  chemical  reactions — 
into  the  vibrations  which  manifest  themselves  to 
us  as  sound,  heat,  light — into  electricity  and  those 
manifestations  whose  discovery  is  more  recent, 
and  whose  nature  is  less  well  understood. 

The  more  we  observe  the  phenomena  in  our 
own  fields  of  activity,  the  more  we  realize  the 
futility  of  trying,  in  a  single  lifetime,  to  explore 
Infinity. 

The  more  content  we  feel,  instead,  to  learn  as 

[300] 


A  Bouquet  of  Poppy  Variations 

It  would  be  impossible,  in  a  single  photograph  to  show  all  of 
the  variations  which  a  single  season's  work  brings  forth.    The  bouquet 
shown  here,  however,  when  compared  with  the  original  golden- 
yellow  parent,  indicates  the  range  of  difference  secured. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

much  as  we  can  that  is  useful  and  practical,  of 
the  single  strand  of  life's  thread  which  has  to  do 
more  immediately  with  the  thing  in  hand. 

***** 

"What  do  you  put  in  the  soil  to  make  your 
canna  lilies  so  big?" 

"How  often  do  you  take  up  the  bulbs  of  your 
gladioli?" 

"How  late  do  you  keep  your  strawberry  plants 
under  glass?" 

These,  and  a  hundred  others  of  their  kind,  are 
the  questions  which  visitors  at  the  experiment 
farm  are  continually  asking  Mr.  Burbank. 

It  is  not  that  Mr.  Burbank  undervalues  the  care 
of  plants,  or  does  not  appreciate  the  importance 
of  cultivation. 

But  his  questioners  fail  to  realize  that  his  work 
has  been  with  the  insides  of  plants  and  not  with 
their  externals. 

Of  the  details  of  working  method — of  the  little 
tricks  that  save  time — of  Luther  Burbank's  bold 
innovations  which  many  gardeners  may  have 
dreamed,  but  none  have  ever  dared  to  do — of 
these,  in  the  volumes  to  come,  we  shall  find  plenty. 

Yet,  we  shall  find  ourselves,  too,  searching  the 
times  when  things  were  not  as  they  are,  in  order 
to  get  glimpses  of  things  as  they  are  to  be — and  all, 
not  from  the  standpoint  of  theory,  but  merely  to 

[3021 


.S.O 


ft. 


«  «0    .*■'&! 

ft  ~S  ~  "> 

a  II*  El' 

B  _ 

■gaa 
"•a 

„  RS'ii 

~  o  <■« 

a  m  ~.« 


■Sni 


«:;? 


32 


*  2, H      =i « 

re  a      <a  __ 


a  cs  *  a  ~» 

t-  S  3  a  s  S" 

£  S  °"  ™  3  -a 
'  „  I  -  2  ■§ 

Ca-i,  ~-  n  as  "a 
B        3  ?  o  « 

Co  n  a"  ~ 

2Sa5.°" 

s        .93 


Co    K. 


Co 

a- 


¥§.: 


a 

3 

a. 


LUTHER  BURBANK 

help  us  in  the  very  practical,  useful  work  of 
coaxing  from  Nature  new  forms  of  plant  life — 
better  forms  than,  uncoaxed,  she  would  give  us — 
plants  which  because  of  their  greater  productivity 
will  help  us  lower  our  constantly  increasing  cost 
of  living — plants  which  will  yield  us  entirely 
new  substances  to  be  used  in  manufactures — 
plants  which  will  grow  on  what  now  are  waste 
lands — plants  which,  by  their  better  fruit,  or  their 
increased  beauty,  or  their  doubled  yield,  or  their 
improved  quality,  will  add  to  our  individual 
pleasures  and  profits,  and  to  the  pleasures  and 
profits  of  the  whole  world. 


[End  of  Volume  I] 


— In  order  to  work  forward 
a  little,  we  must  work 
backward    ages    and    ages. 


<r  -* 


*V 


List  of 

Direct  Color  Photograph  Prints 

in  Volume  I 

/YCaCia  Page 

The  Sensitive  Plant  and  Its  Cousin,  the  Acacia 44 

How  the  Sensitive  Plant  Folds  Up 45 

Amaryllis 

The  Amaryllis   and  Its  Parents 214 

The  Amaryllis   as  Improved 215 

Still   Another   Amaryllis 216 

Apple 

Graft,   One  Year   Old 201 

Showing  Effect  of  Codling  Moth 260 

Asparagus 

Both   Good   Asparagus 253 

Aster 

Wild  New  England  Aster  and  Improved 268 

Bee 

A  Pollen  Laden  Bee 79 

Berries 

A    Primus    Berry 227 

Some    Blackberry    Cam's 236 

Thornless    Raspberry 259 

Burbank,  Luther 

Mr.   Burbank  at   Sixty-Four Frontispiece 

Mr.  Burbank  marking  selections 191 

Carnation 

Carnation — pistil    unreceptive 73 

Carnation — pistil    receptive 74 

Carnation  showing  egg  nest 75 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS    (Continued) 

CactUS  Page 

Armored  Against   Its   Enemies 6 

Every  Inch  Protected 9 

A  Relic  of  Past  Ages 13 

The  Cactus  Still  Bears   Leaves 16 

As  Smooth  as  Velvet 19 

A  Transformation  Seen  in  the  Making 22 

After  a  Year  in  the  Dark 25 

A  Typical   Cactus   Flower 27 

Spineless   Cactus  in  Patch 33 

Cactus  Seedlings  in  "Flat" 186 

Cactus    Seedlings   Transplanted 188 

Celery 

Wild     Celery 134 

Cherry- 
Five  Hundred  Kinds  on  One  Tree 209 

A  New  Canning  Cherry 265 

Clover 

Simulating  a  Poisonous  Look 47 

Coconut 

The  Coconut's  Three  Eyes 95 

Corn 

An  Experiment  in   Corn 91 

Our  Corn  and  Its  Tiny  Parent 127 

Some  Other  Forms  of  Corn 129 

Rainhow   Corn 283 

Dahlias 

Unblended   Heredities 42 

Daisy 

The  African  Orange  Daisy 140 

We  Find  a  White  Cousin 149 

The  Variations  Spread  Before  Us 151 

A  Broadening  of  the  Petals 153 

More  Orange  in  the  Center 155 

A  Full  Orange  Center 157 

More  Evidence  of  Broad  Petals 159 

A  Better  Orange  Than  Its  Parent 161 

Variation  on  the  Outside 163 

We  Could  Make  a  Purple  Daisy 165 

Our  First  Pink  Daisy 167 

A  Second  Step  in  Selection 169 

Try,   Try   Again 171 

At  Last  the  Pink  Daisy 173 


LIST   OF  ILLUSTRATIONS    (Continued) 

Devil's  Claw  Page 

As  It  Grows  in  the  Tropics 101 

Shedding  Its  Husk 103 

Ready  for  Action 101 

Eucalyptus 

An  Ancestral  Secret 39 

Geranium 

Some  Dooryard   Geraniums 66 

The  Geranium  Ready  to  Give  PolJen 70 

The  Geranium  Ready  to  Receive  Pollen 71 

Gladiolus 

Transforming  the  gladiolus 256 

Grafts 

Apple  Graft  One  Year  Old 201 

Chestnut   Graft   One   Year   Old 203 

Ice  Plant 

A  Living  Refrigerator 49 

Lettuce 

Wild  Lettuce 133 

Lily 

Carrion    Lily 81 

Chinese    Lily 121 

Record    of   Selection 207 

Monkey-Puzzle  Tree 

Armored   to   the   Top 30 

Nasturtium 

A  Humming   Rird   Flower 87 

Orange 

Less  Rind,  More  Meat 123 

Orchid 

The  Orchid  Awaiting  an  Insect 84 

The  Orchid's   Pollen   Bundles 85 

Pansy 

A  Response  to  Kindly  Care 118 

Pitcher  Plant 

This  Plant  Eats  Insects 51 

Plums 

A  Typical  Burbank  Plum 239 

The  Plum's  Perishable  Bloom 249 

A  Burbank  Plum  and  Its  Wild  Ancestor 274 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS    (Continued) 

PluniCOt  .  page 

Mr.   Bin-bank's    Plumcot 212 

Showing  Indestructible   Bloom 251 

Poppy 

Poppy  pods — An  Effect  of  Hybridization 224 

California   Poppy 291 

The  Golden  Poppy  Turned  Crimson 292 

The  California  Poppy  Turned  White 293 

The  Poppy  Turned  Fire-Flame 294 

Variations  in  Size 297 

Another    Color   Variation 299 

A  Bouquet  of  Poppy  Variations 301 

White  and  Crimson  Side  by  Side 303 

Potato 

Potato   Seed   Balls 57 

Some    Seedling    Potatoes 60 

The  Burbank  Potato 63 

Variable   Potato    Seedlings 233 

Sensitive  Plant 

The  Sensitive  Plant  and  Its  Cousin 44 

How  the  Sensitive  Plant  Folds  Up 45 

Snowball 

Tame   and    Wild 112 

Snow-on-the-Mountain 

An  Odd  Trait  of  Heredity 281 

Sunflower 

Improving    the    Sunflower 270 

A  Sunflower  Stalk  Which  Is  Square 272 

Tigridia 

Improved    Tigridias 230 

Tulips 

Variations    in   Tulips 196 

View's 

Many  Plants  in  Small   Space 176 

A  Wide  Range  of  Variation 179 

Quantity  Production  the  Keynote '.  183 

Ten   Thousand   Dollar    Bonfire 204 

Violet 

The  Pathos  of  the  Violet 115 

The  Violet's  Wonderful   Advertisement 117 

Walnuts 

Variations    in    Walnuts 242 


# 


4^ 


(V?l 


